

rkss 7 1.7 _ 

Rnnk » A 7 ^ 

GpightN? 


Ci}P»tIGHT DEPOSIT. 












MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


ON THE 

GREAT LAKES 


Exploring the Mystic Isle 
of Mackinac 


/ OT^ 


1X77 


By 

LOUIS ARUNDEL 



Chicago 

M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 


< 


1 / 






o 




CoPYRiaHT 1912. 

M. A. Donohue & Company. 

ALL RIGHTS RESBRTBO. 



Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by 
M. A. Donohue & Co. 


©CI.A332085 



“We can move along to the upper end of this island and 
camp on Canadian land tonight, for a change.” [Page 90] 

The Motor Boat Boys on the Great Lakes 




V ' 

I , 


, \ 












K 



f-' >. ■ -' . Tff'A irvq 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. Up a Tree 7 

II. The Camp in the Cove 

III. The Boat IN THE Face OF THE Moon . . 29 

IV. Caught by the Storm 40 

V. A Strange Sound 51 

VI. “Carry THE News TO Andy!” 59 

VII. Tied up at Mackinac Island 67 

VIII. George Waits for His Chums 76 

IX. In Terrible Peril 85 

X. Marooned 94 

XI. Down THE Soo Rapids IN A Canoe . . . 104 

XII. Winning AN Indian’s Admiration ... 114 

XIII. The Great Inland Sea 124 

XIV. Nick Wipes Out His Disgrace .... 135 

XV. Helping an Enemy 145 

XVI. “Wireless Day” 155 

XVII. Caught Napping 164 

XVIII. A Night of Anxiety 172 


CONTENTS — Continued. 


Chapter Page 

XIX. Peril Rides the Storm Waves .... 181 

XX. Paying the Penalty . 189 

XXL Another Surprise 197 

XXII. To THE Rescue 208 

XXIII. Homeward Bound — Conclusion .... 217 


The Motor Boat Boys on the 
Great Lakes 

or, Young Pilots to the Rescue 


By LOUIS ARUNDEL 


CHAPTER I 

UP A TREE 

^^What a funny cow that is, Josh! Look at the 
silly thing poking her bally old horns in the 
ground, and throwing the dirt up. Say, did you 
ever see anything like that? Why, the poor 
beast must be sick. Josh!” 

^^Cow? Great Jupiter! Buster, you silly, 
donT you know a bull when you see one?” 

“Oh, dear! and just think of me having the 
nerve to put on my nice red sweater this morning, 
because this Michigan air was so nippy. I donT 
believe bulls like red things, do they. Josh?” 

“They sure donT. And then we had to cut 
across this field here, to save a few steps. He’s 
looking at us right now; we’ll have to run for it, 
Buster!” 

The fat boy, who seemed to fully merit this 
name, set down the bucket of fresh milk he had 
been carrying, and groaned dismally. 


8 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


'T just can^t run — never was built for a sprint- 
er, and you know it, Josh Purdue he exclaimed. 
'Tf he comes after us, IVe got to climb up this 
lone tree, and wait till he gets tired. 

^'Then start shinning up right away, Buster; 
for there he comes — and here I go!’^ 

With these words long-legged Josh started off 
at a tremendous pace, aiming for the nearest 
fence. Buster, left to himself, immediately com- 
menced to try to get up the tree. He was so 
nervous with the trampling of the bull, together 
with the hoarse bellow that reached his ears, 
that in all probability he might have been 
caught before gaining a point of safety, only that 
the animal stopped once or twice to throw up 
some more soil, and thus give vent to his anger 
at the intrusion on his preserves. 

Josh got over the ground at an amazing rate, 
and reaching the fence proceeded to climb over 
the topmost rails; never once relinquishing his 
grip on the package of fresh eggs that had just 
been purchased from the farmhouse, to make a 
delicious omelette for a camp dinner. ' 

Meanwhile, after a tremendous amount of 
puffing, and frantic climbing, the fat boy had 
succeeded in getting a hold upon the lower limb, 
and pulled himself out of the danger zone just 
as the bull collided with the trunk of the tree. 


UP A TREE 


9 


^^Gosh!^’ exclaimed Buster, as he hugged his 
limb desperately; ^Vhat an awful smash that 
was! And hang the luck, he’s just put his foot 
in our pail of milk too. There goes the shiny 
tin bucket the farmer loaned me, flying over the 
top of the tree, I guess.” 

He presently managed to swing himself around 
so that he could sit upon the limb and look down 
at his tormentor. The bull was further amusing 
himself by tearing up a whole lot more of the 
turf, and bellowing furiously. 

^^Mad just because you didn’t get me, ain’t 
you, mister?” mocked Buster; whose name was 
really Nick Longfellow, strange to say, consider- 
ing how short and stout nature had made him. 

The bull did not bother answering, so after 
watching his antics for a minute, and wondering 
if he, too, would have been tossed over the tree 
had he been caught, Nick remembered that he 
had had a companion in misery. 

Upon looking across the field he saw Josh 
perched on the rail fence, surveying the situation, 
craning his long neck to better observe the move- 
ments of the animal, and ready to promptly drop 
to the ground at the first sign of danger. 

^^Hey, Josh! ain’t you goin’ to help a feller?” 
shouted the prisoner of the lone tree in the pas- 
ture. 

'^Course I’d like to, Buster; but tell me, what 


10 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


can I do?’^ answered the other. “Perhaps now 
you’d like to have me step inside, and let the old 
thing chase me around, while you scuttled for 
the fence. What d’ye take me for, a Spanish 
bull-baiter? Well, I ain’t quite so green as I 
look, let me tell you.” 

“That’s right. Josh,” replied the fat boy with 
emphasis; “and it’s lucky you ain’t, ’cause the 
cows’d grabbed you long ago for a bunch of 
juicy grass. But why don’t you do something 
to help a feller out of a hole?” 

“Tell me what I can do, and I’ll think about 
it, Buster,” answered the other; as though not 
wholly relishing the remark of his comrade, and 
half tempted to go on his way, leaving the luck- 
less one to his fate. 

“If you only had my red sweater now. Josh,” 
you might toll the old feller to the fence, and 
keep him running up and down while I slipped 
away.” 

“Well, send it over to me then,” replied the 
tall boy, with a wide grin. 

“You just know I can’t,” declared the prisoner. 
“Don’t I wish I had wings right now; or some- 
body’d drop down in an aeroplane, and snatch 
me out of this pickle? But I suppose I’ll have 
to get up a way of escape myself. Don’t I want 
to kick myself now for not thinking about a 
packet of red pepper when I was at that country 


UP A TREE 


11 


store down near Pinconning yesterday. Never 
going to be without it after this, you hear, Josh?” 

Only recently Nick had read an account of how 
a boy, on being hard pressed by a pack of several 
hungry wolves, somewhere in the north, had 
shown remarkable presence of mind in taking to 
a tree, and then scattering cayenne pepper in the 
noses and eyes of the fierce brutes as they jumped 
up at his dangling feet. 

In that case the brutes had gone nearly crazy 
with the pain, and the boy easily made his way 
home. The story had impressed Buster greatly, 
and that was why he now lamented the fact that 
he had no such splendid ammunition to use on 
the bull. 

'^Say, suppose you toss down that red sweater 
to him,” suggested Josh, making a speaking 
trumpet of both his handg. 

^What good would that do?” demanded the 
captive, plaintively; for he was unusually fond of 
the garment in question, and gloried in wearing 
it; though after this experience he would be 
careful about how he donned it again while 
ashore. 

''Oh! he might take to tossing it around, and 
perhaps run to the other side of the field. Then 
you could sneak for the fence,” called the one 
who was safe. 

"Yes, and have him come tearing after me 


12 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


before I was half way there/^ cried Nick. 
guess not. Think of something easier. CanT 
you coax him over there, Josh? Oh! please do. 
I hah beheve you’re as much afraid of him as I 
am.” 

^^Who says I am?” retorted the other, at once 
boldly jumping down inside the fence; upon 
which the bull started on a gallop for that quar- 
ter, and it was ludicrous to see how the valiant 
boaster went up over that barricade again, 
sprawling flat as he jumped to the ground. 

Nick laughed aloud. 

^^He near got you that time, Josh!” he cried. 
^^Ain’t he the terror though? Look at him smash 
at that fence. Better keep an eye out for a tree, 
I tell you, if he breaks through. And Josh, for 
goodness sake save the eggs. Our milk is gone, 
the tin pail is ruined; but we don’t want to lose 
the precious eggs.” 

A few seconds later Nick broke out into a loud 
wail. 

^^Hold on. Josh,” he called; was only fooling 
when I said that about you being afraid. Of 
course you ain’t; only it stands to reason nobody 
wants to let that old bull get a chance tp lift him 
with those horns. Don’t go away and leave 
your best chum this way. Josh.” 

^^Chuck it, Buster,” called back the other. 
^T’m not going to desert you. But somebody’s 


UP A TREE 


13 


got to go after the farmer, and get him to come 
and coax the bull to be good. You can^t go, so 
I’m the only one left to do the job. Hold on 
tight, and don’t talk the bull to death while I’m 
gone.” 

“Oh! bless you. Josh!” called the captive of the 
tree. “I always knew you had a big heart. But 
don’t be too long, will you; because if he keeps 
banging the trunk of this rotten old tree all the 
time and chipping off pieces, I’m afraid he’ll get 
it down yet. Hurry, now. Josh! Tell the farm- 
er what a mess I’m in; and that he’s just got to 
bring out some feed, and coax his mountain of 
beef to be good. Hurry, please. Josh, hurry!” 

He watched the tall boy making his way leis- 
urely along, and groaned because Josh seemed 
determined to let him have quite a siege of it 
there. 

The bull had come back, and was nipping the 
grass almost under the tree. Now and then he 
would move off a httle distance, and deliberately 
turn his back on Nick, as though he had forgotten 
that such a thing as a boy existed. But the 
captive was not so easily deceived. 

“No you don’t Mr. Bull!” he called, derisively. 
“I can just see you looking this way out of the 
corner of your eye. Like me to slip down, and 
try to make that old fence, wouldn’t you? 
Guess I’d sail over the rails with ten feet to 


14 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


spare. But think what an awful splash there ’d 
be when I landed. I can wait a while, till Josh 
takes a notion to tell what he came back for.” 

Minutes passed, and he grew more and more 
nervous. Long ago had his tall chum passed out 
of sight behind the clump of trees that shut off 
all view of the farmhouse. Nick half suspected 
that Josh was lying down somewhere, resting, 
perhaps in a place where he could watch what 
went on in the pasture. 

^^Oh! don^t I wish I had wings now?” he kept 
mumbling, as he shook his head angrily, and 
watched the movements of the bull. fly 

away, and let Josh think the ugly old beast had 
swallowed me, that’s what. He’d be sorry then 
he loafed, when I sent him for help. But is that 
him coming over yonder?” 

He thought he had detected something mov- 
ing; but it was at a point far removed from the 
place where he expected Josh and assistance to 
show up. 

^WeU, I declare, if it ain’t George!” he ex- 
claimed presently. ^^He must have begun to 
believe we were having too good a time at the 
farmhouse; and is on his way over to get his 
share. George is always looking for a pretty 
girl. I’ve got half a notion to let him get part 
way across the field, and then holler at him. 
When a feUer is in a scrape it makes him feel 


UP A TREE 


15 


better to see somebody else getting it in the neck 
too. There he comes across, sure enough!^’ 

The bull had evidently seen George, too; but 
as he happened to be standing half concealed by 
the trunk of the tree just then, the boy who so 
lightly started to cut across the pasture, meaning 
to head for the house among the trees, failed to 
discover the bull. 

^^Oh! my, wonT he be surprised though 
muttered Nick, craning his fat neck in order to 
see the better; for he did not want his friend to 
get so far along that, in a pressure, he could not 
gain the fence before the coming of the wild bull. 

Now the beast had started to paw the ground. 
George stopped short as he caught the sound, 
and looked around him. Just then the bull tore 
up some more turf, and tossed it in the air. That 
meant he was primed to start on a furious rush to 
overtake the newcomer. 

^^Run, George!’’ shrieked the boy in the tree, 
at the top of his high-pitched voice. “Run for 
the fence! He’s got his eye on you! The bull’s 
coming like hot cakes! Go it for all you’re 
worth, George. Oh! my! did I ever see such a 
great lot of sprinting! George can run pretty 
near as good as Josh did, and that’s saying a 
heap.” 

It was. George seemed to be making re- 
markably fine time as he shot for that friendly 


16 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


fence. Evidently George knew something about 
bulls; enough at least not to want to stay in an 
enclosure with an angry one, and interview him. 

For a very brief period of time it seemed nip 
and tuck as to whether George would be allowed 
to get over that barrier unassisted, or be helped 
by the willing bull. But apparently, after one 
look over his shoulder at the approaching cy- 
clone, George w as influenced to let out another 
link, for his speed increased; and he just managed 
to scramble over the rails when the bull came up 
short against the fence, to look through with his 
red eyes, and shake his head savagely. 

“Hey! where are you, Buster?^^ shouted 
George, after he had succeeded in getting his 
breath again. 

“Here, in this bally old tree, George. He 
chased us, and I had to hustle up here, w hile 
Josh went for help. He knocked my milkpail 
to flinders; but thank goodness Josh saved the 
eggs!’^ cried Nick; w^hose greatest failing was a 
tremendous appetite, that kept him almost con- 
stantly thinking of something to eat. 

“Say, youhe a nice one,’’ called the other. 
“Why didn’t you w^arn me sooner?” 

“I’m real sorry now I didn’t, George,” replied 
Nick, as if penitent; though at the time he was 
shaking with laughter, just as a bowl of jelly 
quivers on being moved; “but I v/as in hopes 


UP A TREE 


17 


you^d scare him off. When I saw him getting 
mad, I knew he had it in for you; and then I 
yelled. But George, please think of some way 
to coax the old rascal off, won^t you. It^s awful 
hard on me sitting up here on this limb, and he 
means to stay till I just starve to death. Have 
pity on me George and get up some plan to 
rescue your best chum.” 


18 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER II 

THE CAMP IN THE COVE 

^^Hey, Buster,” cried the one on the other side 
of the fence, ^ Vhere did you say Josh was?” 

'^He went for help, over to the farmhouse 
where we got the milk and eggs,” answered the 
boy in the tree. 

^WeU,” George went on, after looking all 
around. ^‘1 don’t see him coming any too fast; 
and I wouldn’t put it past that joker to take a 
snooze on the way, so as to make you worry a lot 
more.” 

'^Yes, I was just thinking that same thing my- 
self, George. Josh has got it in for me, you know, 
every time. But please think up some way to 
toll this angry gentleman cow away, George.” 

^Tf I only had that red sweater now, I believe 
it could be done,” said George, presently. 

^^Why, that was what Josh said too,” lamented 
the prisoner* ^^but don’t you see I can’t get it 
over to you at all?” 

^^Course not; but hold on there!” called 
George. 

^^Oh! now I know you’ve thought of an idea. 


CAMP IN THE COVE 


19 


Good for you, George! You^re the best friend 
a fellow ever had, when he was in trouble. Are 
you going to sneak in the pasture, and tempt the 
bull away?” 

“I am not,” promptly responded George. 
^TVe got too much use for my legs, to take the 
chances of being crippled. But wait and see 
what I^m going to do. Trust your Dutch uncle 
to fool that old cyclone. Look at him tossing 
the dirt up again. Oh! ain^t he anxious to get at 
me, though?” 

^'What^s that you^re shaking at him now?” 
demanded Nick. ^Tt looks like my sweater, 
only I know your’s is gray. Why, it must be a 
bandanna handkerchief; yes, I remember now, 
you often tie one around your neck, cowboy 
fashion. I can see that you’re going to get me 
out of this nasty fix, George. It takes a lawyer 
sometimes to beat a bull at his own game.” 

^Tt is a bandanna, Buster,” replied the other, 
^^and watch me coax the old fellow along the 
fence, down to the other end of the field. How 
he shakes his head every time I wave the red 
flag, and tries to get at me. It’s working fine, 
Buster. You get ready to drop down and run 
when I tell you.” 

'^But George, even if you coax him to the end 
of the pasture you know I’m so slow I never 
could make the fence before he caught up with 


20 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


me?’^ cried the still worried prisoner of the tree. 

^'Yes, you are like an ice wagon, Buster; but 
never mind. IVe got all that fixed. Just look 
down yonder and you’ll see a nice little trap 
ready for Mr. Bull. It’s a small enclosure, with 
three long rails to slide across, once he’s inside. 
Then he’s caught fast, and can’t get out. That 
is meant for just such a purpose. See?” 

^ ‘Bully! bully!” shouted the delighted Nick, 
waving his hat in the air. “Oh! I tell you it 
takes a smart fellow to get on to these dodges. 
Why, Josh must have been blind not to see that 
same thing. Look at the bull following you 
every time you take a step. Then he turns his 
old head to peek back at me, as if just daring me 
to try and make the fence. But I know better. 
I can wait. WTiy, George, talk to me about 
your Spanish buU fights, this sure takes the 
cake!” 

“Don’t crow too soon,” answered the other 
boy. “Now comes the ticklish part of the game. 
Will he go in that enclosure, or balk?” 

“Wave it harder, George! Make out that 
you’re going to climb over. That’s the way to 
hold him. My! but wouldn’t he like to pitch 
you higher’n a kite. Look at that piece of old 
fence rail go fiying, would you? Now he’s in- 
side, George! Oh! if you can only get the bars 
across!” 


CAMP IN THE COVE 


21 


George proved equal to the emergency. He 
fastened his red handkerchief to the fence, so 
that the wind kept it stirring constantly, with 
the bull snorting just on the other side, and 
smelling of the flaming object. Then George 
slily slipped back, took hold of the upper bar, 
and quickly shot it in place through the opposite 
groove. 

A second immediately followed; and by the 
time Mr. Bull awakened to the fact that he had 
again fallen into the old trap, he found himself 
neatly caged. 

Nick was wild with delight. Still talking 
aloud, partly to himseh and also addressing 
fulsome remarks to his chum, he started to slide 
down the body of the tree, landing with a heavy 
thump on the ground. 

Then he went off at a pretty good pace, for 
one so stout, heading for the nearest part of the 
friendly fence. 

Just about this moment, when Nick was half 
way across the intervening space, who should 
appear but Josh, followed by a farmer bearing 
a measure of corn as a lure intended to entrap 
the fighting animal. 

All Josh saw was his friend trotting over the 
field; and filled with sudden alarm lest poor Nick 
be overtaken by the wily bull, whom he supposed 
to be on the other side of the tree, he immediately 


22 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


broke out into a shrill shout. 

''Run faster, Buster! He’ll sure get you! 
Put on another speed! Hurry, hurry!” 

When the fat boy heard these wild cries he 
became visibly excited. It was all very well to 
tell him to gallop along at a livelier clip 5 but 
Nature had never intended Nick Longfellow for 
a sprinter. When in his new alarm he attempted 
to increase his speed, the consequence was that 
his stout legs seemed to get twisted, or in each 
other’s way; at any rate he took a header, and 
ploughed up the earth with his stubby nose. 

It gave him a chance to roll over several times, 
as if avoiding a vicious lunge from the wicked 
horns of the bull, which animal he imagined must 
be closing in on him. 

Struggling to his feet, he again put for the now 
near fence; and George nearly took a fit laughing 
to see the remarkable manner in which the fat 
boy managed to clamber over the rails, heedless 
of whether he landed on his feet or his head, so 
long as he avoided punishment. 

When Josh came running down, accompanied 
by George, Nick was brushing himself off, and 
wheezing heavily. 

"Give you my word, Buster,” said the long- 
legged boy, penitently, "I never saw that the old 
duffer was caught in that trap when I yelled. 
Thought he was only hiding behind the tree, and 


CAMP IN THE COVE 


23 


giving you a fair start before he galloped after. 
George, did you do that smart trick? Well, it 
never came to me, I give you my word. Every- 
body can’t have these bright ideas, you know. 
And Nick, I was bringing the farmer, with a 
measure of corn, to get the bull to the barn. 
Hope you don’t hold it against me because I 
yelled. I sure was scared when I saw you trot- 
ting along so easy like.” 

Nick was of a forgiving nature, and could not 
hold resentment long. 

^^Oh! that’s all right. Josh,” he said. “No 
great harm done, even if I have torn a big hole 
in my trouser knee. But you stayed away a 
mighty long while. Seemed like a whole hour to 
me.” 

“Oh!” replied Josh, with a twinkle in his eye, 
“not near as long as that. Course it seemed like 
it to you, because a feller in a tree is worried. I 
had some trouble finding the farmer, you know. 
But let’s go back and get some more milk. Here’s 
my eggs all sound. Never broke one, even 
when I piled over this fence in such a hurry.” 

The rest were of the same mind; so, accom- 
panied by the amused Michigan farmer, they 
walked back to the house, where another pur- 
chase was made. Not only did they get milk, 
and another pail; but George thought to ask 
about butter, and secured a supply for camp use. 


24 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


This time they avoided all short-cuts as tend- 
ing to breed danger. 

'TVe heard said that The longest way around 
is the shortest way to the fire/ laughed George, 
as they passed the trapped bull; ^^but I never 
knew it applied to cow pastures as well. Just 
remember that, will you, Buster?^ ^ 

'^Just as if I could ever forget those wicked 
looking horns,’’ answered the fat boy promptly . 

guess I’ll dream about that bull often. If 
you hear me whooping out in the middle of the 
night, boys, you can understand that he’s been 
chasing me in my sleep. Ugh! forget him — 
never!” 

In about ten minutes they came out of a grove 
of trees, and before them lay the great lake 
called Huron. Although it was something of a 
cove in which a campfire was burning, beyond, 
as far as the eye could reach, stretched a vast 
expanse of water, glittering in the westering sun, 
for it was late in the afternoon at the time. 

Three natty little motor boats were anchored 
in the broad cove, back of a jutting tongue of 
land that would afford them shelter should a 
blow spring up during the night from the north- 
east, something hardly probable during early 
August. 

Near the fire a trio of other lads were taking 
things comfortably. One of these was Jack 


CAMP IN THE COVE 


25 


Stonnways, the skipper of the Tramp; another 
Jimmie Brannagan, an Irish lad who hved in the 
Stormways home on the Upper Mississippi, as a 
ward of Jack^s father, and who was as humorous 
and droll as any red-haired and freckled face boy 
on earth; while the third fellow was Herbert 
Dickson, whose broad-beamed boat was called 
the Comforty and well named at that. 

George Rollins commanded the slender and 
cranky speed boat which rejoiced in the name of 
Wireless y and Josh acted as his assistant and 
cook; while Nick played the same part, as well 
as his fat build would allow, in the big launch. 

They had spent a month cruising about the 
Thousand Islands, where fortune had thrown 
them in the way of many interesting experiences 
that have been related in a previous volume. 
Just now they were making a tour of the Great 
Lakes, intending to pass up through the famous 
Soo canal, reach Lake Superior, knock around 
for a few weeks, and then head for Milwaukee; 
where the boats would be shipped by railroad 
across the country to their home town on the 
great river. 

As soon as the three wanderers arrived, laden 
with good things, Josh, who was the boss cook 
of the crowd, began to start operations looking 
to a jolly supper on the shore. 

There were a few cottages on the other side of 


26 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


the little bay; but just around them it was given 
over to woods, so that they need not fear inter- 
ruption during their evening meal, and the sing- 
ing feast that generally followed. 

Out in the bay a large power boat was an- 
chored, a beautiful craft, which the boys had 
been admiring through their marine glasses. 
Possibly the flutter of girls’ white dresses and 
colored ribbons may have had something to do 
with their interest in the costly vessel, though 
neither Herb nor Jack would have confessed as 
much had they been accused. 

The name of the millionaire’s boat was 
Mermaidy and she was about as fine a specimen 
of the American boatbuilder’s art as any of these 
amateur sailors had ever looked upon. 

^^Me for a swim before we have supper,” said 
Nick; who felt rather dusty after tumbling 
around so many times during his exciting expe- 
rience with the bull. 

^T’m with you there, Buster,” laughed Jack. 
^^You know I’ve got an interest in your work, 
since I taught you how to swim while we were 
making that Mississippi cruise.” 

On the previous Fall, the high school in their 
home town was closed until New Year’s by order 
of the Board of Health, on account of a dreadful 
contagious disease breaking forth. These six 
lads, having the three staunch motor boats, had 


CAMP IN THE COVE 


27 


secured permission from their parents or guar- 
dians to make a voyage down the Mississippi to 
New Orleans. Jack really had to be in the 
Crescent City on December 1st, to carry out the 
provisions of the will of an eccentric uncle, who 
had left him considerable property. The other 
chums had gone along for the fun of the thing. 
And it was this trip Jack referred to when speak- 
ing of Nick^s swimming. 

Presently both boys were sporting in the 
water, having donned their bathing suits. While 
thus engaged Jack noticed out of the corner of 
his eye that a boat had put out from the big 
vessel, and also that the two girls were passen- 
gers. 

Perhaps they were going ashore to take dinner 
with friends at one of the cottages just beyond 
the end of the woods; although Jack fancied that 
the men rowing were heading a little out of a 
straight course, so as to come closer to the three 
little motor boats, and possibly give the fair 
passengers a better view of the fleet. 

There was now a stiff wind blowing, something 
unusual at an hour so near sunset. The waves 
came into the bay from the south, it being some- 
what open toward the lower end, and slapped up 
on the beach with a merry chorus, that made 
swimming a bit strenuous for the fat boy; though 


28 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Jack, being a duck in the water, never minded it 
a particle. 

Intent on chasing Buster, whom he had allow- 
ed to gain a good lead. Jack was suddenly thrilled 
to hear a scream in a girlish voice, coming from 
the boat which he knew was now close by. 

His first thought was that one of the girls had 
leaned too far over the side, and fallen into the 
water, which at that point was very deep. And 
it was with his heart in his mouth, so to speak, 
that Jack dashed his hand across his eyes to 
clear his vision, and turned his attention toward 
the big power boat’s tender. 


DISCOVERED 


29 


CHAPTER III 

THE BOAT IN THE FACE OF THE MOON 

A single look told Jack another story, for after 
all it was no human life in peril that had given 
rise to that girlish shriek. 

Upon the dancing waves he saw a pretty hat, 
which had evidently been snatched by the wind 
from the head of the golden-haired maid, who 
was half standing up in the boat, with her hands 
outstretched toward her floating headgear. 

The men had started to change their stroke, 
and try and turn the boat; but with the wind 
blowing so hard this was no easy matter. The 
chances seemed to be that possibly the hat might 
sink before they could get to it. 

Jack never hesitated an instant. No sooner 
did he ascertain how things lay than he was off 
like a shot, headed straight for the drifting hat. 
It chanced that the wind and waves carried it 
toward him at the same time; so that almost 
before the two men in the boat had turned the 
head of the craft properly. Jack was reaching out 
an eager hand, and capturing the prize. 

^^Hooray!’^ came in a chorus from the boys 


30 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


ashore near the fire. Even Buster tried to wave 
his hands, forgetting that he had full need of 
them in the effort to remain afloat, with the 
result that he temporarily vanished from view 
under a wave. 

Jack smiled to see the two girls in the boat 
clapping their hands as they bore down upon 
him. He noticed now, that while the one who 
had lost her hat was slender and a very pretty 
little witch, her companion was almost as heavy 
in her way as Buster himself, and with the 
rosiest cheeks possible. 

^^Oh! thank you,^^ cried the maiden whose 
headgear had been rescued from a watery grave. 
^Tt was nice of you to do that. And it was my 
pet hat, too. Whatever would I have done if it 
had sunk, with poor me so far away from our 
Chicago home. Is one of those dear little boats 
yours?” 

^^Yes, the one with the burgee floating at the 
bow,” returned Jack, as he kept treading water, 
after delivering up the gay hat. ^We’re taking 
our vacation by making a trip from the Thous- 
and Islands aU through the Great Lakes. My 
name is Jack Stormways.” 

^^And mine is Rita Andrews. My father owns 
that big power boat there; and we live in Oak 
Park near Chicago. This is my cousin, Sallie 
Bliss. I^m sorry to say that weTe going to 


DISCOVERED 


31 


leave here early in the morning; or Td ask you 
to come aboard and meet my father/^ 

Nick meanwhile was approaching, making 
desperate efforts to hurry along before the boat 
passed on. For Nick had discovered that the 
rosy-cheeked girl was just the match for him, 
and he wanted to be introduced the worst kind. 

Unfortunately the cruel men took to rowing 
again, and though Nick swam after, puffing and 
blowing like a porpoise, he was left in the lurch. 
But he succeeded in waving his hand to the de- 
parting ones, and laughed joyously when he saw 
that Miss Salhe actually returned his salute. 

So the boat with its fair occupants passed 
away. Jack wondered whither the millionaire, 
whose name he remembered having heard be- 
fore, was bound; and if a kind fate would ever 
allow him to see that charming face of Rita 
Andrews again. Little did he dream of the 
startling conditions that would surround their 
next meeting. 

^^Hi! there, you fellows, come ashore and get 
some duds on!^’ called George, who had been an 
interested observer of this little play. 

^^Yes,^’ supplemented Josh, waving a big spoon 
as though that might be the emblem of his au- 
thority as ^^chief cook and bottle-washer,’’ ^^Sup- 
per’s about ready, and my omelette eats best 
when taken right off the pan. Get a move on 
you, fellows.^^ 


32 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


It was amusing to see the scramble Nick made 
for the shore. The jangle of a spoon on a kettle 
always stirred his fighting spirit; he felt the ^^call 
of the wild’^ as George said, and could hardly 
wait until the rest sat down. 

So the two swimmers went ashore, and hastily 
dressed. Nick was forever talking about the 
lovely roses in the cheeks of Miss Sallie. 

^^You didnT play fair, Jack,^^ he complained. 
^^When you saw how anxious I was to get up, 
why didnT you pretend to have a cramp, or some- 
thing, to detain the boat. I didnT even get 
introduced. She donT know what my name is. 
It’s mean, that’s what I think.” 

Jack knew that Buster would never be happy 
junless he had some cause for grumbling. It was 
[usually all put on, though, for naturally the fat 
boy was a good-natured, easy-going fellow, ready 
to accommodate any one of his chums to the 
utmost. 

While they ate the fine supper which Josh 
spread before them, George entertained the 
party with a droll account of the adventure two 
of their number had had with a bull. He had 
purposely kept silent up to now, and bound Josh 
to secrecy, so that he could spring the story 
while they sat around. 

Loud was the laughter as George went on in 
his clever way of telling things. But Nick 


DISCOVERED 


33 


laughed with the rest. Viewed from the stand- 
point of safety things really looked humorous 
now ; whereas at one time they had seemed terri- 
fying indeed. 

“Catch me wearing that blessed red sweater 
again when I go for milk or eggs/^ he declared. 
“Once is enough for me. Oh! if I^d only had a 
camera along to snap Josh as he went climbing 
over that fence, with the bull so close behind. 
I^d get that picture out every time I felt blue, 
and laugh myself sick.^^ 

Josh assumed an injured air, as he spoke up, 
saying: 

“Now would you listen to that, fellows? Just 
as if I looked a quarter as funny as Nick did, try- 
ing to scramble up that tree, nearly scared to 
death, because he thought Johnny Bull wanted 
to help him rise in the world. Oh! my land! but 
he was a sight. When I went off to get help I 
wanted to laugh so bad I just fell over in the 
grass, where he couldn^t see me, and just had it 
out. Couldn’t help it.” 

“That’s what kept you so long, was it?” de- 
manded Nick, reproachfully. “All right, the 
very next time you get in a pickle, and yell out 
for help, I’m going to get a crick in my leg when 
I try to run, see if I don’t.” 

“All the same I noticed that you could swim to 
beat the band when you tried to join Jack, before 


34 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


the sweet girlies got away/^ put in George, ma- 
liciously. 

^^Nick was afraid the boat was going to upset, 
and he saw a chance to save that red-cheeked 
little diunpling from a watery grave,” Herb re- 
marked, with a grin. 

“Suppose something had happened. Jack 
couldn^t have rescued them both. But you can 
laugh all you want to, smarties, she waved her 
hand to me all the same, didn’t she. Jack?” ap- 
pealed the fat boy, stubbornly. 

“I saw her wave to somebody, so I suppose it 
was meant. for you,” replied Jack. 

“Birds of a feather flock together,” chanted 
Josh. 

“That’ll do for you,” Nick declared sternly. 
“She was a fine and dandy little lady, and I hope 
some time in the future I’ll see Sallie Bliss again.” 

“Bliss! Oh! what d’ye think of that, fellows?” 
roared George. 

“Leave Buster alone, can’t you?” Jack said, 
in pretended indignation. “He’s all right, and 
honest as the day is long. None of your Crafty 
Clarence in his makeup, you know, fellows.” 

Clarence Macklin was a boy who came from 
the same town as those around the camp fire. 
He was the son of a very rich man, who supplied 
him with almost unlimited spending money. 
Consequently Clarence was able to carry out any 


DISCOVERED 


35 


folly that chanced to crop up in his scheming 
mind. 

Learning through trickery of the intention of 
the motor boat boys to cruise among the Thous- 
and Islands, he had shipped his fast speed boat, 
called the Flash thither, and succeeded in giving 
them more or less annoyance. He was accom- 
panied by his pet crony, a fellow called Bully 
Joe Brinker, who usually did the dirty work 
Clarence allowed himself to think up. 

^^Say, speaking of that fellow, wonder what’s 
become of him?” George remarked; for there 
was a standing rivalry between his boat and that 
of the other, both being built solely for speed, and 
not comfort or safety. 

“Didn’t he hint something about coming up 
in this region later on?” said Jack. 

“I understood it that way,” observed Herb. 
“And more than a few times, while we cruised 
along the southern shore of Ontario and Erie, I 
thought we’d see his pirate boat bob up.” 

“I hope we don’t run across that crowd again,” 
observed Nick. “For they’re sore on us, and 
bound to do us a bad turn if they find the 
chance.” 

“Well, we can keep our eyes open,” remon- 
strated George. “You know Clarence believes 
that Flash can make circles around my bully 


36 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


boat, and I^m wanting to give him a chance to 
prove it/' 

^^Chuck that, George" said Josh. ^^You know 
you beat him out once handsomely." 

^^Yes, but he said he hadn't tried to do his 
level best. Anyhow, if the chance comes again 
I'm ready to race him." 

^^How long would we be gettin' up till the Soo 
now. Jack, darlint?" asked Jimmie; who being 
second ^^high notch" in the line of eaters in the 
crowd, had been too busy up to now to do any 
great amount of talking. 

‘That depends pretty much on the weather," 
replied the leader of the expedition, who studied 
his charts faithfully, and was always ready to 
give what information he picked up, to his 
chums. “We are now something like one hun- 
dred and fifty miles sou'-east-by-south from 
Mackinac Island, where we expect to stop over 
a few days. If we pick out a good morning we 
ought to navigate the head of Huron and the 
crooked St. Mary's river to the Soo in one day. 
The steamers do, and we can make about as 
fast time." 

“Of course we have to hold up for the Comfort 
pretty much all the way," said George; “not 
that I'm complaining, fellows, for I imderstand 
that it takes all sorts of people to make a world, 
and lots of different kinds of boats to please 


DISCOVERED 


37 


everybody. And in bad weather Herb and Josh 
fare better than the rest of us. Well, suppose 
we leave here tomorrow morning, if the weather 
lets us, Jack?^’ 

^^We will try and make Mackinac with just 
one more stop,’^ Jack replied. ^^That will be 
easy enough; though if the wind gets around and 
the waves increase, we^U have to run for some 
snug harbor, George, because your boat and 
mine are hardly storm craft on these big lakes.” 

^^It^s been a foine trip so far, I say,” observed 
Jimmie, reaching for another baked potato, 
which Josh had cooked to a turn in the ashes of 
the fire, somehow keeping them from blackening, 
as is usually the case in camp. 

^^YouVe right there, Jimmie,” replied Herb. 
'^And with no serious accidents to come, well 
make a record to be proud of. Just imagine us 
sitting around the fire in our cozy club house that 
is right now building, while Jack reads the stir- 
ring log of our experiences up here. It will make 
us live over the whole trip again.” 

''Yes,” chimed in George, "and think of the 
bliss that must bring.” 

Nick colored a little, as he felt every eye on 
him. 

"Look at the moon just peeping up over yon- 
der, fellows,” he observed, meaning to distract 
their attention. 


38 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^^Just about full too/’ remarked Jack. ^^Go- 
ing to be a great night for a camp.” 

^^Makes me think of that moonlight race we 
had with the Flashy^ George went on, his heart 
always set on the matter of speed and victories. 

Night was just closing in, and the grand full 
moon was rising from the watery depths, so it 
seemed. 

^There comes a motor boat down yonder,” 
remarked Herb. ^^See what a fine searchlight 
she has. No need of that, though, as soon as the 
moon gets fairly up.” 

^^Say, she’s just humping along to beat the 
band, I tell you!” declared Josh, as all eyes were 
turned to where the shadowy form of the ad- 
vancing craft could be seen, growing plainer with 
every passing second. 

^^Oh! I don’t know,” instantly remarked 
George, who was unable to see much good in any 
small craft when his pet Wireless was around. 

should say she was doing just fairly, you know; 
but then she doesn’t have to hold back for any 
elephant.” 

^That’s a mean hit, George,” said Herb, 
though he never changed his mind about his 
comfortable boat because of any slurs cast by 
his mates, who might come to envy him in bad 
weather. 

^^Look at her cut through the water, would 


DISCOVERED 


39 


you?” Josh went on. ^The fellows aboard 
don't intend to turn in here to stop over. Must 
be in a hurry to get somewhere, I guess.” 

^There, she's just passing the rising moon. 
Why, I declare, fellows, seems to me she looks 
kind of familiar like!” Nick exclaimed. 

Jack jumped up, and secured a pair of marine 
glasses. They were guaranteed for night work, 
and through them he could see the passing motor 
boat splendidly. 

^Ts it. Jack?” asked George, eagerly^ and the 
other nodded. 

^That's the same old Flash, all right,” he 
said, looking around the circle. 

^^Gosh!” exploded Nick, ^^Crafty Clarence is 
on the trail once more, bent on revenge for the 
beat George gave his pirate motor boat. I see 
warm times looming up ahead of us, shipmates 
all. And ain't I glad I know how to swim 
now!” 


40 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER IV 

CAUGHT BY THE STORM 

'T wonder if they know we are camping in 
this place right now?’^ Josh ventured. 

^The chances are, they do,” replied Jack. 
^‘Both of those chaps possess eyes as sharp as 
they make them. And there^s another reason 
why I think that way.” 

“Then let^s hear it, old fellow,” begged Nick. 

“This is a nice, attractive place to haul in, and 
spend the night, when cruising along in a small 
motor boat. As evening has come, not one in 
ten would think of passing the cove by; and you 
know it, boys,” Jack went on, with emphasis. 

“But they deliberately did that same thing,” 
ventured Herb. “Yes, I get on to what you 
mean. Jack. They’d rather boom along, and 
take chances of being caught out on the open 
lake in the night, even with a storm in prospect, 
to stopping over near the camp of the motor boat 
club. Is that it?” 

“Just what I meant. Herb,” nodded the other. 

“And I guess you struck it, all right,” com- 
mented Josh. 


CAUGHT BY THE STORM 


41 


‘^But if they didn’t want to say us agin, what 
in the dickens did they iver kim up this way for, 
I doan’t know?” remarked Jimmie, helplessly. 

At that George laughed out loud. 

^^Wake up, Jimmie!” he exclaimed. ‘^You’re 
asleep, you know. Why, don’t you imderstand 
that Clarence Macklin never yet took a beat like 
a fair and square man? He won’t rest easy till 
he’s tried it again with the Wireless, I happen 
to know that he hurried his poor old boat to a 
builder, and had him work on the engine, hoping 
to stir it up a peg or two. And now he’s going 
to sneak around till he gets the chance to chal- 
lenge me again.” 

^^And,” went on Nick, following up the idea, 
“he didn’t want to drop in here with us, because 
in the first place he hates us like fun; and then he 
v/as afraid George might ask questions about 
his bally old boat.” 

“He wants to spring a surprise!” declared 
Josh. “That’s his play all the time. When we 
had snowball battles, Clarence was forever hid- 
ing with a bunch of his men, and jumping out 
suddenly at us. That’s where he got his name 
of Sneaky Clarence.” 

“Well,” remarked Jack, “I hope George gets 
a chance to show him up again for the fraud that 
he is; but at the same time I don’t want Clar- 
ence and Bully Joe bothering us right along. 


42 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


We didn’t come up here just to chase around 
after them.” 

^^Or have the gossoons chasing around afther 
us, by the same token,” laughed the Irish lad. 

They sat around the fire, and carried on in 
their usual jolly way, telling stories, laughing, 
and singing many of the dear old school songs. 
Six voices, and some of them wonderfully good 
ones too, made a volume of sound that must 
have carried far across the bay to the cottages, 
where the summer residents were doubtless sit- 
ting out in the beautiful moonlight. 

The boys began to think of retiring about ten 
or after. A couple of tents had been purchased 
after coming to the St. Lawrence river country; 
for somehow all of them became tired of sleeping 
aboard the boats, since there was little of com- 
fort about it. 

These tents had been erected under the super- 
vision of Jack, who knew all about how a camp 
should be constructed, so that in case of wind or 
rain no damage was likely to result. 

They made a pretty sight now, with the moon- 
light falling upon them, and the flickering fire 
adding to the picture. 

Jack had wandered down to the edge of the 
water. The three motor boats were all anchored 
close by, and everything had been made snug; 
but of course it was not the intention of the boys 


CAUGHT BY THE STORM 


43 


to leave things unguarded. The chances of 
trouble were too positive to think of such fool- 
ishness. 

^Too bad, Jack, that the wind has gone down,^^ 
said a voice at his elbow; and turning Jack saw 
the grinning countenance of George. 

^^Oh! I donT know,” remarked the other, 
slowly and cautiously, as if wondering whether 
George could read his secret thoughts, and know 
that he was just then thinking of the pretty 
little girl whose hat he had rescued from the 
hungry maw of the lake that afternoon. 

^ Why, I think I hear voices over yonder where 
they landed, and girls at that,” George con- 
tinued, wickedly. ^^No doubt the little darhngs 
are about embarking on the return trip to the 
Mermaid, Now, if the wind would only sud- 
denly swoop along, perhaps a boat might be 
upset. But Jack, with your clothes on, you^d 
have a tough time swimming out there and sav- 
ing Rita^s life, like you did her bonnet.” 

^^Oh! let up on that, will you?” laughed Jack, 
good naturedly; for he was used to such joking 
and joshing on the part of his mates, and ready 
to take it in the same spirit of fun that it was 
meant. was thinking about our boats here. 
Seems to me that whoever is on guard should 
take up a position where he can keep an eye on 
the whole outfit. At the first sign of danger, he 


44 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


must wake up the bunch of us. Isn^t that right, 
George?^ ^ 

^^Sure it is; but see here, you don^t really think 
anything happen, do you?^^ the other demand- 
ed, imeasily. ^ ^Because if I had any idea that 
way, I’d feel like going aboard, and sleeping 
there, uncomfortable as a narrow speed boat is. 
Why, it’d nearly break my heart if anything 
knocked my Wireless just now, and spoiled the 
rest of my vacation.” 

^^Oh! I guess there’s no real danger,” said 
Jack, quickly; “but you know my way of being 
cautious. An ounce of prevention, they say, 
George, is better than a pound of cure. We 
insure our boats against explosion and loss; why 
not do the same about our chances for a jolly 
good time?” 

“Right you are. Jack. That’s a long head you 
carry on your shoulders,” admitted the skipper 
of the speed craft. “But there they come. I 
can see the boat, and the white dresses of the 
girls. She is a little angel. Jack, and seriously 
I don’t blame you for wanting to see more of 
Miss Rita Andrews; but the chances are against 
you, old fellow.” 

“Well, girls were the last thing we had in 
mind when we started on this trip,” remarked 
Jack. “We left lots of pretty ones at home, you 
know; and we’re getting letters from some of 


CAUGHT BY THE STORM 


45 


them right along. There, they Ve made the big 
power boat all right, and are getting aboard. 

^^And you can go to sleep with an easy mind,” 
laughed George, ^ ^because the young lady wasn’t 
wrecked in port. But perhaps we might happen 
to catch up with ’em at the Soo, Jack. No 
doubt you had thought of that?” 

“We expect to be at Mackinac first, and peo- 
ple generally stop off there a day or two,” re- 
marked the pilot of the Tramp, falhng into the 
little trap shrewd lawyer George had set for him; 
whereat the other gave him a dig in the ribs, and 
ran off to the camp to get his blankets ready for 
his first nap. 

But nothing out of the way did happen that 
night, though the motor boat boys kept faithful 
watch and ward, one of them being on duty an 
hour or more at a time up to dawn. 

With the coming of the sun over the water all 
were awake, and preparations for breakfast un- 
derway. Jack, Nick and Josh concluded to take 
a morning dip, while the rest were looking after 
the cooking of a heap of delicious flapjacks done 
to a brown turn as only the wonderful Josh could 
coax them. 

Smoke rising slowly from the big power boat’s 
cook’s galley pipe announced that preparations 
w'ere underway there for an early start. 

Indeed, the vessel started to leave the harbor 


46 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


even while Jack and his mates were still sitting 
around the fire, disposing of the appetizing mess 
that had been so skillfully prepared for the 
crowd. 

^^Jack, it’s all right!” laughed George. 

^^Yes,” chimed in Nick, innocently, with a sigh 
of relief, /^they’re heading north, sure as any- 
thing.” 

^^Oh! we forgot there was a pair of ’em, sigh- 
ing like furnaces,” jeered Josh. 

But Jack and the fat boy only laughed. 

^^Rank jealousy, Nick; don’t you bother your 
head about such cruel remarks,” said the former, 
winking to the stout youth. 

^ Well, everybody get busy now,” said George, 
jumping to his feet. ^Tt looks hke we might 
have a fairly decent day, if that blessed old wind 
keeps away. My boat rolls like fun when in a 
wash, and I don’t like it a bit. Hope we’ll have 
the air out of the southwest today, so we’ll be 
shielded by the shore.” 

He hurried off to get aboard. The others were 
not far behind, for tents had been taken down, 
and blankets stowed, while breakfast was being 
cooked; so that there was not a great deal to do 
now. 

Then, after a last survey of the late camp had 
been taken by cautious Jack, in order to make 
sure that nothing was forgotten and the fire dead, 


CAUGHT BY THE STORM 


47 


he too stepped into his little dinky, paddled out 
to where Jimmie awaited him aboard the Tramp; 
and five minutes later the little flotilla started, 
amid a tremendous popping of motors, and much 
calling back and forth on the part of skippers and 
crews. 

Once outside the protecting cape they headed 
due nor’-east by north, and kept just a certain 
distance away from the shore. 

It was a lovely morning, and gave promise of a 
fine day; but these cruisers had learned through 
bitter experience never to wholly trust such 
signs. In smnmer at any rate, storms can de- 
velop with suddenness on the big lakes, and a 
squall start to blowing without warning. Hence 
they had adopted as a motto, the slogan of the 
Boy Scouts: “Be Prepared!” 

George called out to the skipper of the Tramp, 
and pointed ahead, where, several miles to the 
north could be seen the dim shape of the big 
power boat, rapidly covering the distance that 
intervened between the cove and charming 
Mackinac Island. 

“They’ll be at Mackinac tonight, all right. 
Jack!” shouted George, who led the little pro- 
cession in his speed boat. 

Jack made no attempt at a reply; but Jimmie 
took up the cudgels at once. 

“Sure we’ll make it by tomorry night, if all 


48 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


goes well/^ he said; ^^and begorra, not wan of 
our boats is in the same class wid the big wan. 
Take the three togither and they^d be only a bite 
for the Mermaid, So we bate thim aisy now.” 

So they chugged along as time passed. In an 
hour all signs of the larger craft had passed from 
their sight. At noon they opened up Thunder 
Bay; and thinking to make the dangerous cross- 
ing of its broad mouth before having lunch, they 
kept on. 

It was rather rough traveling, especially for 
the narrow Wireless; and acting upon Jack^s 
suggestion George hovered close to the others, 
so as to have help in case of trouble, and be 
partly sheltered from the rollers by keeping in 
their lee. 

But the passage was made in safety; and after 
that their course changed to some extent. The 
shore turned more toward the northwest, so that 
they headed into the wind, which was creating 
some sea, in which the small craft wallowed con- 
siderably. 

An hour later Jack began to cast anxious 
glances toward the shore, hoping to d* ‘‘o er an 
opening* of some sort, in which the fleet might 
take refuge. For the sky was darkening by 
degrees, and he fancied he caught the muttering 
of thunder in the distance. 


CAUGHT BY THE STORM 


49 


On their starboard quarter nothing could be 
seen but a vast heaving expanse of water; for 
Lake Huron at this point stretches more than 
fifty miles, before Grand Manitoulin Island is 
reached to the northeast. 

It would be a bad place for such small craft 
to be caught in a storm. Still, the shore looked 
strangely devoid of any indentation, and Jack^s 
fears increased as the minutes passed without 
any change for the better cropping up. But he 
did not express these aloud, and even his boat- 
mate Jimmie, although often casting a look of 
anxious inquiry at the face of his skipper, could 
not tell what was passing in his mind. 

And then, without any warning, there sud- 
denly came a vivid flash of lightning over in the 
west, almost immediately followed by an omi- 
nous clap of thunder that seemed to make the 
very air quiver. 

“Say, that looks bad!” called out Josh; who 
was in the cranky speed boat, and had more 
reason to be alarmed than most of his comrades. 

“What shall we do. Jack?” asked Herb, whose 
Comfort was keeping close on the port side of the 
boat Jack had charge of. 

“Push on for all we^re worth,” answered the 
other. “I think I see a harbor, if only we can 
make it before the storm breaks. George, you 
leave us, and drive ahead; for the danger is 


50 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


greater with you than the rest. But don’t worry 
fellows; it’s all right, we’ve just got to make that 
bay where the point sticks out, and we’re going 
to do it too.” 


A STRANGE SOUND 


51 


CHAPTER V 

A STRANGE SOUND 

George recognized the wisdom of such a move 
as his chum suggested. If the wind kept on im 
creasing as it seemed bound to do, and the storm 
broke upon them in all its mid-summer violence, 
the cranky speed boat would be apt to feel the 
effect more than either of the other craft. 

It was therefore of great importance that he 
and Josh seek the promised shelter with all haste. 
Much as he disliked leaving the balance of the 
fleet, necessity seemed to compel such a move. 

Accordingly, he threw on all the motive power 
his engine was capable of developing, and began 
to leave the others quickly in the lurch. 

Jack could easily have gone ahead of the heavy 
Comfort, but he did not mean to do so. Better 
that they stick together, so as to be able to render 
assistance if it were badly needed. 

Talking across the narrow abyss of water sep- 
arating the two boats was altogether out of the 
question, unless one shouted. There was no 
time for an exchange of opinions, since all of 
them needed to keep their wits on the alert, in 


52 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


order to meet the dangers that impended. 

Already had the waves grown in size. They 
were getting heavier with every passing minute; 
and the little motor boats began to actually wal- 
low, unless headed directly into the washing seas. 

It was a critical time for all concerned, and 
Nick could be seen with his cork life-preserver 
carefully fastened about his stout body under the 
arms, as if prepared for the very worst that could 
happen. 

It was about this time that Jimmie gave a 
shrill whoop. 

^They done it!’’ he yelled, regardless of the 
rules of grammar, such was his delight. *The 
ould Wireless is safe beyant the p’int!” 

Jack saw that what he said seemed to be so. 
The speed boat had evidently managed to reach 
a spot where the jutting tongue of land helped 
to shield her from the oncoming waves. She 
no longer plunged up and down like a cork on the 
water, though continuing her onward progress. 

The sight spurred the others on to renewed 
zeal. If George could do it, then the same meas- 
ure of success should come their way. 

Five minutes later Jack noticed that there was 
an apparent abatement of the wild fury with 
which the heaving billows were beating against 
the bow of his little craft. A look ahead told 
him the comforting news that already was the 


A STRANGE SOUND 


53 


extreme point standing between the two boats 
and the sweep of the seas. 

do be safe!” shouted Jimmie; who, in his 
excitable way seemed ready to try and dance a 
jig then and there, an operation that would have 
been attended with considerable danger to the 
safety of the Tramp^s human cargo. 

^^And not a minute too soon!” said Jack, as a 
sudden gust of wind tore past, that might have 
been fatal to his boat had it been wallowing in 
one of these seas just then. 

As it was, they had about all they could do to 
push on against the fierce gale, protected as they 
were by the cape of land. The spray was flying 
furiously over that point, as the waves dashed 
against its further side. But the boys knew 
they were safe from harm, and could stand a 
wetting with some degree of patience. 

George was waiting for them, his anchor down, 
at a point he considered the best they could make 
for the present. He had managed to pull on his 
oilskins, and was looking just hke a seasoned old 
tar as the other boats drew in. 

Jimmie and Nick were ready with the mud- 
hooks, under the directions of their respective 
skippers. Hardly had these found a temporary 
resting-place at the bottom, than all four lads 
seized upon their rainproof suits, and presently 
they were as well provided against the downpour 
as George. 


54 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


And the rain certainly did descend in a deluge 
for a short time. They had all they could do to 
prevent the boats from being half swamped, such 
was the tremendous violence with which the 
torrent was hurled against them by the howling 
wind. 

But after all, it was only a summer squall. In 
less than half an hour the sun peeped out, as if 
smiling over the deluge of tears. The wind had 
gone down before, but of course the waves were 
still rolling very heavily outside. 

‘That settles our going on today declared 
George, as he pointed at the outer terminus of 
the cape, past which they could see the rollers 
chasing one another, as if in a great game of tag. 

“It’s pretty late in the afternoon anyhow,” 
declared Josh, who was secretly worried for fear 
lest his rather reckless skipper might want to 
put forth again. 

“Yes, and we might look a long way ahead 
without finding a chance to drop into a harbor 
as good as this,” remarked Herb. 

“You’re all right,” laughed Jack; “and we’d 
be silhes to even dream of leaving this bully nook 
now. Besides, if tomorrow is decent, we can 
make an extra early start in the morning, and 
get to Mackinac before dark.” 

“That suits me all right,” Nick observed, as 


A STRANGE SOUND 


55 


he complacently started to remove his oilskins, 
so that he could pay attention to the bulky cork 
life preserver, which he did not mean to wear all 
night. 

They found that it was possible to make a 
point much closer to the shore, and it was de- 
cided to do so, especially after sharp-eyed Jimmie 
had discovered signs of a farm near by, possibly 
belonging to a grower of apples, since a vast 
orchard seemed to cover many acres. 

hope that big power boat wasnT caught in 
that stiff blow,” Jack remarked, as they were 
getting ready to go ashore in order to stretch 
their legs a bit and look around. 

“Oh! I guess they must have made Macki- 
nac,” said George. “She was a hurry-boat, all 
right, and the wind would not bother her like it 
did our small fry.” 

“Thank you, George, for that comforting re- 
mark. I was really getting worried myself 
about the Mermaid” observed Nick. 

“Listen to Buster, would you, fellows?” cried 
Josh. “I never thought he^d go back on the 
girls we left behind us, and particularly Rosie!” 

But Nick only grinned as they joined in the 
laugh. 

“I^m a privileged character now,” he asserted, 
stoutly. “A sailor is said to have a best girl in 
every port, you know, fellows. And every one of 


56 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


you will agree with me that Sallie Bliss is as 
pretty as a peach/^ 

“And just your size too, Buster, declared 
Herb. 

“Look out for an engagement with some dime 
museum company as the fat” — started Josh; 
V. hen he had to dodge something thrown at him 
by the object of this persecution, and the sen- 
tence was never completed. 

The ground being sandy close to the water, 
they concluded to start a fire, so as to cook sup- 
per ashore, since it was so much more “homey” 
as Nick said, for them to be together at meal- 
times. But all were of the opinion that it would 
be advisable to sleep on board. 

“Another hot squall might spring up during 
the night,” observed George, “and just fancy 
our tents going sailing off to sea. Of course I 
donT hanker about putting in a night in such 
cramped quarters as my narrow boat affords; 
but it canT come anywhere near what I went 
through with when Buster was my shipmate, 
down on the Mississippi.” 

“And then somebody ought to go after milk 
and eggs,” suggested Herb. 

“Here, donT everybody look at me,” Nick 
bridled up. “I guess it^s the turn of another 
bunch this time. Josh and myseff have served 
our country as haulers of the necessities.” 


A STRANGE SOUND 


57 


^^But every farmer doesn^t own a bull, Bus- 
ter, remarked George. 

^^Well, I object to bulldogs just as much. 
Little fellows are all right, likewise pussy cats; 
but dehver me from the kind that hold on to all 
they grab. Nixey. You and Jack try it this 
time, George.” 

^^That's only fair,” spoke up the latter, imme- 
diately. 

^Well,” said George, ^^if we^re going, the 
sooner we start the better; because you see 
the old sun is hanging right over the horizon.” 

^'And I’m nearly caved in for want of proper 
nourishment,” grumbled Nick. 

No one paid any particular attention to his 
remark; because that condition was a regular 
part of his lamentations several times a day. 
The only time Nick seemed to be in a state of 
absolute contentment was the half hour following 
a gorging bee; and then he beamed satisfaction. 

Accordingly the pair started forth, armed with 
a tin bucket for the milk. George had no great 
love for biting dogs himself, and as they ap- 
proached the vicinity of the farm buildings he 
suggested to his companion that they arm them- 
selves with stout canes, with which they might 
defend themselves in case of an emergency. 

“Looks hke a prosperous place, all right,” 
Jack observed as they saw the buildings and the 


58 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


neat appearance of things in general. 

“But seems to me it’s awful lonely here/’ re- 
marked George. “Where can the people all be? 
Don’t see any children about, or women folks. 
Plenty of cows and chickens, but sure they can’t 
take care of themselves.” 

.“Well, hardly,” laughed Jack. “We’ll run 
across somebody soon. Let’s head for the barn 
first. Generally at this time you’ll find the men 
busy there, taking care of the horses, and the 
pigs.” 

“I hear hogs grunting,” remarked George. 

“Well, I got the same sound myself; but do 
you know it struck me more like a groan!” Jack 
said, in a voice somewhat awed. 

“A groan! Gee; what do you mean. Jack?” 
exclaimed the other, turning toward his chum 
with a white face. 

“Just what I said,” Jack replied. “And 
listen, there it is again. Now I know it was no 
swine you heard, George. That sound was from 
the barn. Come on. I’m afraid somebody’s in 
trouble here!” 


‘‘CARRY THE NEWS TO ANDY!” 59 


CHAPTER VI 
“carry the news to Andy!” 

“Nobody here, Jack!” announced George, in a 
relieved tone, as the two entered the stable, and 
looked around. 

A number of horses stood in stalls, munching 
their oats, which in itself told the observing Jack 
that some one must have been there a short 
time before, since the animals had been recently 
fed. 

Before he could make any reply to his com- 
panion's remark, once more that thrilling sound 
came to their ears. And this time even George 
realized that it was unmistakably a human groan. 

“It came from over here!” exclaimed Jack, as 
without the slightest hesitation he sprang across 
the floor of the place. 

George following close upon his heels, saw him 
bending over the figure of a man, who was lying 
upon the floor in a doubled-up position. 

“What has happened? Did one of the horses 
kick him?” gasped George, always a bundle of 
nerves. 

“No, I donT think so,” replied Jack. “I can 


60 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


find no sign of an injury about him. It’s more 
likely a fit of some kind he’s just recovering from. 
Lots of people are subject to such things, you 
know.” 

^^Say, that’s just what;” declared George. 
had an uncle who used to drop like a rock right 
in the street or anywhere.” 

^What did they do with him at such times?” 
demanded Jack, anxiously. 

^Well, nobody seemed able to do much,” re- 
plied the other. saw my father loosen the 
collar of his shirt, and lay him out on his back. 
A little water on his face might help; but in most 
fits it takes some time to recover. But I thought 
I saw his eyelids twitch right then. Jack.” 

^^Yes, he’s going to come out of it,” replied 
Jack, as he managed to get the old man into 
what seemed like a more comfortable position. 

And presently, as the two boys still bent anx- 
iously over him, the man opened his eyes. He 
stared at them for a bit, as if trying to collect his 
thoughts. Then a horse neighed, and he seemed 
to realize his position. 

Jack, seeing him trying to sit up, assisted him. 
The old man sighed heavily, and spoke in a weak 
tone. 

''Reckon I dropped in my own stable that time. 
Might have been imder the feet of the bosses too. 
And both men away. Who are ye, boys? I’m 


“CARRY THE NEWS TO ANDY!» 61 


beholdin’ to you moreen I can say.” he went on. 

Whereupon Jack soon explained how they be- 
longed to a little company of cruisers who had 
been driven by the storm to take shelter behind 
the point of land; and that their present errand 
was to secure a supply of fresh milk and eggs, if 
so be they could be had. 

“Help me to the house, please, boys,” said the 
farmer, trying to rise. “I’m always some weak 
after one of these spells. They’re acomin’ 
oftener now, and I’ll have to quit bein’ alone. 
Now more’n ever I need Andy. Oh! if they can 
only find him for me. I’ll be so happy.” 

Of course this was so much Greek to the two 
boys. But they gladly helped him to regain his 
feet, and walk to the house. 

“The men will be back soon, and you can have 
all the milk and eggs you want!” he declared; 
and even as he spoke George discovered a team 
coming toward the farmhouse, evidently from 
some nearby town, with a couple of husky men 
on the wagon, which was piled high with new 
and empty apple barrels. 

“That let’s me out,” laughed George, “for 
you see, I was just going to volunteer to milk 
Bossie; and as I’ve had mighty little experience 
in that line, perhaps she’d have kicked me into 
the next county for a bungler.” 

The men came on to the house, seeing stran- 


62 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


gers present, and Jack soon explained the situation 
to them. He learned that the old farmer’s name 
was Jonathan Fosdick, and that the Andy he 
had spoken about was his only son, with whom 
he had quarreled several years back, and for 
whom his heart was forever yearning, now that 
old age and disease began to grip hold of him. 

Supplied with the milk and the eggs the two 
lads started back to the camp. 

^Tromise to come up and see me again tonight, 
boys,” the old farmer had pleaded, as he came to 
the door vdth them, after positively refusing to 
accept any pay for what they had received. 
want to speak with you about something that’s 
on my mind a heap lately. You helped me 
once; p’raps ye can again.” 

^^Now, what under the sun do you think he 
meant?” remarked George, as they plodded 
along with their heavy burdens toward the lake 
shore, where the boats lay. 

“Just wait, and we’ll know all about it soon,” 
replied Jack; for while he could himself give a 
pretty good guess what was on the mind of Mr 
Fosdick, he did not care to commit himseh. 

The others greeted the foragers vdth loud cries 
of delight. 

“Then there wasn’t any bull handy?” said 
Nick, with an evident shade of disappointment 
in his voice; for Nick was nothing if not generous; 


“CARRY THE NEWS TO ANDY!’' 63 


and having tasted the delights of being chased up 
a tree by an angry bovine, he felt that the other 
fellows ought to share the experience with him. 

The fire was already burning briskly, and Josh 
employed in his customary tasks of getting 
things ready for cooking. At such times Josh 
was looked upon as a czar, and his simplest word 
was law. It was very pleasant for the tall, 
lanky lad to feel that he did have an hour or so 
each day, when every one bent the knee to his 
superior knowledge; and he certainly made the 
most of it. 

And the supper was of course a bountiful one. 
It could not be otherwise so long as Nick and 
Jimmie had a hand in its preparation. The for- 
mer hovered around from time to time, suggest- 
ing that Josh add just another handful to the 
rice that was being cooked, or possibly wondering 
if they could make one big can of muUagatawny 
soup do for six fellows; until frequently the boss 
would turn and wither him with a look, backed 
up as it was with that big spoon. 

Later on, after everybody had declared them- 
selves satisfied. Jack beckoned to the skipper of 
the Wireless, 

“We promised that we’d run up and see how 
Mr. Fosdick was getting on, fellows,” remarked 
the latter. “Be back inside of an hour or so; 
long before you are thinking of going aboard.” 

Nick started to rise, but sank back again as 


64 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Jack shook his head. 

^‘This farmer keeps a black bull, Buster. I 
saw him in an enclosure, and seemed to me the 
bars looked mighty slender!^’ observed George, 
maliciously. 

^ ^Excuse me, I think this fire feels mighty 
comfy, grinned Nick. 

The two boys found Mr. Fosdick waiting for 
them. The woman who did his household work, 
a black mammy, had been over at a neighbor's 
when they were there before; but had later on 
returned, and cooked supper. 

Things even looked a little cheerful, with the 
lamp-light flooding the comfortable livingroom 
of the big farmhouse. 

^^Sit down, boys,” said the farmer, pointing to 
two chairs, he himself reclining on a lounge. 
“You’re wondering now why I wanted to see ye 
again. I’m beholdin’ to you for the prompt 
assistance you gave me. But there’s somethin’ 
more’n that. Did ye say as how ye was bound 
for Lake Superior way soon?” 

“Why, we are going as far as the Soo,” Jack 
rephed, readily; “and we may take a notion to 
prowl along the northern shore for a short dis- 
tance. I’ve always heard a heap about the big 
speckled trout to be taken around the mouth of 
the Agawa river and other places there, and 
since we have the chance I thought I’d like to try 


“Carry the news to ANDYI’’ 65 


to land a whopper, if so be the rest of the boys 
are willing to go/^ 

“The Agawa!” repeated Mr. Fosdick, eagerly. 
“I wonder if that might be the place now. 'Twas 
somewhere along that northern shore he said he 
saw my Andy.” 

“That was your son, I take it?” ventured Jack. 

“Yes, my only boy or child. His mother died 
after he ran away, and I^m gettin’ old now. I 
want Andy to come home; but try as I would, I 
never could get a line to him.” 

Then he went on to tell about his boy, and for 
a long time Jack and George had to listen to an 
account of Andy^s childhood life. Gradually he 
came to the point where the highstrung boy had 
refused to be treated as a child any longer. A 
violent quarrel had followed, and Andy left 
home. 

“I know now I was most to blame,” said the 
old man, contritely; “and if only I could get 
word to my boy I^d beg him to come back to me. 
I want to see him again before I foUer his mother 
across the great divide. Just a week ago I had 
a letter from a party who told me he was sure 
he saw Andy in a fish camp up on Superior. 
HeM growed up, and the gentleman didnT have 
a chanct to speak with him; but afterward it 
struck him who the man was. If so be ye run 
across Andy, tell him I^m waitin’ with my arms 


66 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


stretched out for him, won^t ye, boys?” 

^To be sure we will!” declared George, heartily, 
for he was considerably affected by the appear- 
ance of grief on the old man’s face. 

They soon afterward started to say goodnight, 
wishing to get back to where the rest of the party 
sat around the camp fire. 

forgot to tell ye,” went on Mr. Fosdick, as 
he followed them to the door, “as they was a 
young chap here t’other day as said he’d keep 
an eye out for Andy. And now that I think of 
it, he had a little motor boat too, like them you 
tell me about. And he said he ’spected to cruise 
around Superior a bit.” 

George and Jack exchanged glances. 

“And was his name Clarence Macklin?” asked 
the latter, quickly. 

“Just what it was,” replied the farmer, waving 
them a farewell. 

“Now, what do you think of that?” asked 
George, as they strode on. “Why, that fellow 
is bound to crop up all the time like a jack-in-the- 
box. We can’t even start to do a poor heart- 
broken old father a good turn, but he gets his 
finger in the pie. But there’s a bully chance for 
me to get another race with his piratical Flashy 
and that’s some satisfaction;” and Jack found 
himself compelled to laugh, realizing that George 
had his weakness just as well as Buster. 


TIED UP AT MACKINAC 


67 


CHAPTER VII 

TIED UP AT MACKINAC ISLAND 

^^All aboard!’^ 

It was Nick who shouted this aloud on the fol- 
lowing morning. They had arisen at dawn, and 
prepared a hasty breakfast. Josh had looked 
out for this on the preceding evening, for he had 
cooked a pot of grits, which being sliced while 
cold was fried in butter after being dipped in egg. 
Only several fryingpans were needed for the job, 
on account of the extreme fondness Nick had for 
that particular dish. But long ago his comrades 
had learned to view such an assertion on the 
part of the fat boy with suspicion; because it 
was discovered that the present treat was alioays 
the one Buster adored most. 

The waves still seemed larger than might prove 
comfortable, but there was a fair chance of their 
going down later on in the day. Besides, George 
was gaining more confidence in his narrow boat, 
as he came to know it better; and he possessed 
something of a reckless spirit in addition. 

'^AinT this just glorious!’’ exclaimed Nick, 
when they had gotten fully started, and passing 


68 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


beyond the protecting point, felt the full force 
of the waves. 

Not a voice was raised in dissent; even Josh, 
while looking a little anxious, refused to put up a 
complaint as the Wireless ducked and bowed 
and slid along through the troubled waters like 
a ^ ^drunken duck,’^ as Nick termed it aside to 
Herb. 

But just as they had anticipated, things im- 
proved as the day advanced. The breeze grew 
hghter; and while it came over many miles of 
water, the sea was not threatening. ' Besides, 
there is such a thing as growing accustomed to 
such things. What in the beginning might ex- 
cite apprehension, after a while would be ac- 
cepted as the natural thing, and even looked 
upon with indifference. 

They kept this up until after the noon hour, 
and splendid progress was made, so Jack de- 
clared. As he had been elected the commodore 
of the fleet, and kept tab of the charts, they al- 
ways depended on what he said as being positive. 

Finding a good opportunity to get ashore 
about this time the boys accepted it by a unani- 
mous vote. So many horns aboard small boats 
gives one a cramp, and under such conditions a 
chance to stretch is always acceptable. 

Their stay was not long, for all of them were 
anxious to reach the beautiful island known as 


TIED UP AT MACKINAC 


69 


Mackinac by evening. So once more the fleet 
put out, and in a clump bucked into the north- 
west breeze and the sea. 

They were now heading due northwest, and 
about three in the afternoon George declared 
he could see land dead ahead which he believed 
must be Bois Blanc Island. 

reckon now youTe just about right, said 
Jack, after he had consulted his map, and then 
in turn peeped through his marine glasses. ^Tor 
the way we head, there couldnT be any other 
land straight on. If that’s so, fellows, we’ll 
raise the hilly island just beyond pretty soon.” 

Before four they could get a sight of what 
seemed a little green gem set in the glittering 
sea of water. 

“That’s Mackinac, all right,” observed George. 
“I can see white dots among the green, that 
stand for the houses. We’re going to get there 
today, fellows. Told you so, Buster. Me for 
a juicy steak tonight then.” 

“Oh! don’t mention it, please,” gasped Nick. 
“You make my mouth fairly water. And if our 
boss cook would only suggest fried onions along 
with it, my cup of joy would be running over.” 

^'Sure,” called out Josh, “if you promise to 
peel the tear-getters. We need such a heap to 
satisfy that enormous appetite of yours, not to 
mention some others I know, that I refuse to 
undertake the job.” 


70 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^^Oh! all right; count on me!’’ cried Nick, look- 
ing around as though anxious to begin work at 
once, a proceeding that George vetoed on the 
spot. 

need my eyes to see how to steer, thank 
you, Buster,” he declared. ^‘You just hold in 
your horses. Plenty of time. Besides, most of 
the onions are aboard the Comfort along with 
Josh.” 

An hour later they were approaching the magic 
isle that has won a fame all its own as a picture 
of beauty seldom equalled, and never excelled — 
green with its grass and foliage, and with many 
snow white cottages and hotels showing through 
this dark background. 

^^Did you ever see anything like it?” asked 
Jack, as the three boats sped onward. 

“Never,” rephed several of the others. 

“I’m glad we’ll soon be there!” declared Nick; 
but everybody knew without asking, that he 
was thinking about that beefsteak and onions, 
rather than the joy of reaching such a pretty 
shore. 

“Look at the old blockhouse up on the hill!” 
remarked Herb. 

“Yes, I’ve been reading up on this place, and 
history tells about some lively times around here 
during the War of 1812. Seems the British 
thought Mackinac a good place to have posses- 


TIED UP AT MACKINAC 


71 


sion of. They sent out an expedition, and came 
ashore in the night, surprising the little American 
garrison. 

^That was tough,'’ grunted Josh. ^Xike to 
hear things the other way. Thought Americans 
never got taken by surprise." 

^^Oh! well," laughed Jack; ^^you want to read 
history again, my boy. But I notice a good 
many steamers around. I reckon most of those 
bound through to Chicago stop here, as well as 
the Lake Superior ones. There's a boat coming 
in full of people. The Islander she's called. 
That must be the boat going over to the Snow 
Islands every day. There's another back of 
her, perhaps coming down from the Soo. Seems 
quite a lively place, fellows." 

^^You bet it is. We must take a run around 
the island tomorrow, before going on. Never 
do to pass this by, as we may not be here again 
in a hurry." Herb remarked. 

Approaching the shore they began to look out 
a suitable place where the small boats might be 
tied up for the time they expected to remain. 
This was not easy to find, since they had to take 
care and not get in the way of any large craft 
that might be going out. 

After all it was Nick who discovered the open- 
ing. Josh declared that the fat boy's vision was 
sharpened by the clamorous demands of his appe- 


72 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


tite; but Nick, as usual, paid little attention to 
such slurs. 

^^Who’s going ashore to find a butcher shop?” 
he demanded, as they began to draw close in to 
the shore, and get ready to tie up. 

appoint you a committee of one to secure 
the steak,” said Jack, solemnly; ^^and remember, 
don’t let it be a bit over one inch thick, and weigh 
more than five pounds.” 

^^Good gracious! that wouldn’t be even a pound 
apiece!” expostulated Nick. 

'^All right! we expect to have some other things 
along with it, remember,” Jack continued. 
^^You know the penalty of disobedience to or- 
ders, Buster?” 

^ ^Deprived of food allowance for twenty-four 
hours!” broke in Josh. 

Nick only groaned; and presently finding a 
chance to creep ashore he hurried off on his de- 
lightful errand. For when there was anything 
connected with meals to be done, Nick was as 
spry as anybody in camp. 

It was some little time before he showed up 
again. 

'Wow! look at what’s coming, would you?” 
shouted Josh, suddenly. 

Of course it was Nick, laden with various 
packages, and grinning amiably. 

"It’s all right. Jack,” he announced as he came 


TIED UP AT MACKINAC 


73 


ambling along. 'Tt doesn't weigh a fraction 
over five pounds. Oh! I was mighty particular 
about that, I tell you. Had him cut off pieces 
of the tail till it got down to an even thing." 

“Here, somebody help him, or he'll take a 
header into the brink, and lose half of what he's 
hugging so tight!" called Herb, and Jimmie 
started to obey. 

“But what's in all these other packages?" 
asked Jack, pretending to frown. 

“Why, onions, just onions and then more 
onions!" came the bland reply; at which the 
others burst out into a roar, causing Nick to look 
at them in pity. “You fellows can laugh all 
you please," he said in lofty scorn; “it don't 
feaze me one little bit. I was afraid we might 
fall short, and so I bought a half peck at the 
butcher's. Then, while I was coming along, I 
saw some white ones, and couldn't resist the 
temptation to get a couple of quarts. They 
go fine raw when you feel just nippy, you see, 
along with a piece of pilot bread." 

“But there's still another package; how about 
that, Buster?" asked George. 

“Why," answered the other, slowly; “after I 
started off with the white ones would you believe 
it I discovered a lot of those fine big Spanish 
onions in a confectioner's store. I just couldn't 
resist the temptation to get half a dollar's worth. 


74 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Mightn^t have the chance ^gain, you know, fel- 
lows. It^s my treat this time.’^ 

^ Thank goodness! weVe really got enough of 
something to satisfy Pudding for once!’^ cried 
Josh, as he received the various packages. 

“Look at the steak, Josh,” said the provider, 
proudly. “Guess I ought to know a good thing 
in that line. It^s streaked with fat, and is bound 
to just melt away in your mouth.” 

Josh admitted that it did look tempting; and 
later on the entire party agreed that Nick had 
profited by his hobby. 

When starting upon this extended trip the 
motor boat boys had agreed that on no account 
would they sleep under the roof of a house, unless 
in case of sickness. So even at Mackinac they 
must keep ta their boats. 

Several of them went ashore to see what the 
place looked hke sunder the electric hghts, re- 
turning an hour or so later, ready for bed. Those 
left behind had attended to all necessary ar- 
rangements, so that httle time was lost. 

As customary, the watches were made up of 
two, on different boats, and so selected that Nick 
would be paired with Jack himself; because the 
commodore was suspicious of Buster’s ability 
to remain awake with any one else as his sentry 
mate. 

It happened that while these two were taking 


TIED UP AT MACKINAC 


75 


the first turn, and Jack every once in a while 
would poke Buster with a setting pole he kept 
handy, something not down on the bills came to 
pass. The first thing that Jack knew about it 
was when Nick gave vent to a shrill screech, and 
scrambled to his knees, holding on to some 
struggling object that seemed to scratch and 
snarl and act in a way that was altogether mys- 
terious. And of course the whole six boys were 
immediately awake, sitting up to ask all sorts of 
questions. 


76 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER VIII 

GEORGE WAITS FOR HIS CHUMS 

^^What is it?’^ Josh exclaimed, as he scrambled 
to his knees. 

^^Buster is on the rampage again! That’s 
what comes of eating too much supper. He’s 
got a bad case of indigestion, I bet!” declared 
George, grumblingly; for he had come very near 
falling over the side of his boat when Josh made 
that sudden move, and it startled him not a 
httle. 

“But he’s got hold of something, I tell you! 
Look at him grabbing around. Must be a wild- 
cat or something like that,” Josh went on. 

“Faith ye’re all wrong,” spoke up Jimmie. 
“Sure it’s a monkey he’s huggin’ till his breast, 
so he be.” 

“A monkey!” cried Herb, as he appeared be- 
hind the fat boy, holding a fryingpan threaten- 
ingly in his hand.” 

“Yes, that’s what!” gasped Nick. “Don’t 
you see, a tame monkey, and with a little red cap, 
and a coat on. He was going through my pock- 
ets, I tell you, when I woke up — that is when I 


GEORGE WAITS 


77 


first felt him. Give us a hand here and help me 
hold the little scratcher. My! but he’s strong, 
and he tries to bite my nose every time.” 

‘^Because you’re hurting him,” said Herb. 
"Wait till I get hold of that bit of rope he’s trail- 
ing behind. Now let him loose, Buster, but 
keep him away from your face. He’d scratch 
your eyes out.” 

The queer little visitor seemed to be willing 
to submit, once Nick stopped squeezing him; for 
he inunediately took off his red cap, and made 
quite a bow. Then he snatched up a small tin 
cup that was attached to a belt he wore, with a 
tiny chain, and held it out to Herb. 

""Give him a penny. Herb,” laughed Jack. 

""Yes, he recognizes an old acquaintance; help 
a poor fellow in distress. Herb!” Josh hastened to 
add. 

""Where under the sun d’ye suppose he came 
from?” asked George, suspiciously. 

""Must belong to some Italian organgrinder, I 
should say, judging from the uniform, and the 
piece of broken rope. Perhaps he’s run away, 
and wanted to become a stowaway on board 
Herb’s boat,” Jack went on. 

""All right,” the other remarked, promptly, 
""anyhow, he knew a good boat when he saw one. 
Give him credit for that. But did you hear what 
Buster said about him feeling in his pockets? 


78 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Now, IVe heard it said that often these monkeys 
are taught to steal, going up into second-story 
windows, and grabbing things. Perhaps he was 
sent aboard right now to pick up anything he 
could find.” 

tell you he knew all about vest pockets, as 
sure as you live,” announced Nick. 

“Looks to me as if he had got something in his 
pocketbook right now!” declared Herb. 

“What^s that? A monkey have a pocketbook? 
You’re poking fun at us!” cried Josh. 

“I am, eh? You observe me,” said Herb, as 
with a dextrous movement he seized upon the 
monkey, and by main strength forced him to 
eject something from his mouth. 

“Say, it’s a real watch, fellows!” cried Nick, 
astonished; “he had it right in his cheek, sure 
he did.” 

“And it’s my little dollar nickel watch,” said 
Herb. “Shows he searched me before trying 
Buster. All the same if it’d been a hundred dol- 
lar gold repeater. He’s a thief, sure enough. 
What’ll we do with him, fellows?” 

“Tie him up, and if nobody comes after him, 
we’ll keep Jocko,”sSuggested Josh. 

“Think he’d be lots of fun, I suppose,” grum- 
bled Nick. “But if he stays it’s got to be on an- 
other boat than this. The little fiend would have 
it in for me. He’d worry the fife, out of me; and 


GEORGE WAITS 


79 


I just can^t afford to lose any flesh/^ 

‘^Changed your tune, eh?^^ taunted Josh. 
^^Seems to me IVe heard you trying all sorts of 
ways to get thin.” 

‘That was before I took notice of the horrible 
example we had along, of the living skeleton,” 
retorted Nick. “After that I just made up my 
mind to remain nice and plump. Some people 
look best when they^re fat, you know.” 

“There, he's thinking of Sallie again,” remark- 
ed Josh. 

“But we haven't seen a sign of the Mermaid^'' 
remarked George; “and I reckon she's left here 
for the Soo region ahead of us. But Herb, find 
some way to fasten the little rascal up for to- 
night, so he can't do any mischief. If his owner 
comes for him in the morning we'll give him a 
scare.” 

Herb managed to do this, although Nick de- 
clared he would be afraid to take a wink of sleep 
for fear of being choked, or something else as 
dreadful. All the same when his time came to 
give up sentry duty, no one heard so much as a 
“peep” from Nick again until daylight arrived. 

It was arranged on the following morning that 
they should explore the island, in order to see 
its wonders and beauties, in two detachments, 
each consisting (rf Jhree. Jack learned that 
bicycles could be hired close by, and mounted on 


80 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


these he and Herb and Josh made the grand 
rounds, allowing nothing to escape them. 

Then after lunch the others took wheel and 
carried out the same programme, even to visiting 
the old blockhouse on the hill, and viewing the 
charming marine spectacle from the top of the 
little bluff. 

As they gathered around late in the afternoon 
to compare notes, and discuss the various mat- 
ters that interested them. Jack noted first of all 
that the shrewd little monkey, which had been 
dubbed Jocko, was still aboard the Comfort, 

Nobody had shown up to inquire about him. 
Nick was for going' ashore and spreading the 
news of the find far and wide; but the others re- 
fused to allow him. They really believed that 
Jocko had been sent aboard by his master to 
steal; and that this party was afraid to claim him 
now. 

^Tf we have to take him along he’ll give us lots 
of fun,” remarked Jack. 

^^Yes, Buster is only thinking that there’d be 
one more mouth to feed, and that might cut his 
share of the rations down a peg,” asserted Josh. 

^^Now that’s where you wrong me,” declared 
the fat boy, solemnly. ^Tf you insist on hearing 
what I was thinking about. I’ll tell you. Sup- 
pose we should get stormbound somewhere up on 
the twisting St. Mary’s river, or on the biggest 


GEORGE WAITS 


81 


fresh water lake in the world — why, you see we 
could always turn to Jocko, and make a good 
meal. I remember reading that monkeys were 
just prime.” 

^^Oh! you cannibal!” cried the horrified Josh. 
^^Why, that poor little innocent looks just like a 
baby.” 

^^Yes,” retorted Nick, ^^your mother showed 
me your picture when you were six months old, 
and there is a close resemblance.” 

Night came on, and there was no claimant, so 
Jocko ate supper with the boys. He was already 
making good friends, and seemed very well sat- 
isfied with his new lot. Perhaps he missed the 
cuffing and beating he was accustomed to; but 
he could do without that very well; and the eat- 
ing must have appealed to him strongly. 

In the morning they left soon after breakfast. 
The day opened fair, and they knew there was a 
long trip before them if they hoped to cross the 
head of Lake Huron, and follow the winding 
channel of the St. Mary^s river so as to reach 
Sault Ste. Marie by night. 

Fortunately the breeze, what little there was, 
chanced to be in the north for a change. This 
allowed them to keep close to the southern shore 
of the peninsula for some hours, following its 
contour and avoiding the pounding that heavy 
seas always brought in their train. 


82 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Finally they entered the narrow strait be- 
tween the mainland and big Drummond Island, 
Here the bustling port of Detour was passed. 
Nick hinted about going ashore and doing a lit- 
tle marketing; but Jack vetoed that proposition. 

^Tlenty of time to do all that after we get to 
the Soo tonight,” he observed; and Nick knew 
there was no appeal from his decision. 

^Ts that Canada over yonder?” asked Josh^ 
pointing to the island off their lee. 

^^No, Drummond belongs to Michigan,” Jack 
replied. ^Turther on though, weJl strike St- 
Josephus Island, and that is a part of Canada. 
So we’ll all step ashore just to say we’ve been 
outside the U. S. for once.” 

“And that Mud Lake you were telling us 
about is somewhere along there, ain’t it?” Herb 
asked. 

“We’ll find it, I reckon,” replied the commo- 
dore, drily. 

They did, and had reason to remember it too. 
Sometimes the waterway bearing the outlet of 
Lake Superior to the lower lakes was very wide 
and imposing. Then again it would narrow 
until Nick expressed his firm conviction that 
they had taken the wrong channel, and would 
be stopped, and have to return over their course. 

But Jack kept his charts before him as he led, 
and was positive he had made no mistake of that 


GEORGE WAITS 


83 


sort. Occasionally George would be unable to 
restrain his impetuous nature. At such times 
he would shoot ahead of the others, to make a 
little rush of perhaps a mile, and then slow up to 
await their coming, being always careful not to 
lose sight of his chums. 

But alas, George did this prank just once too 
often. He heard Jack say some time before that 
they were passing through Mud Lake, and must 
be careful; but thought this referred to getting 
lost in some side passage that looked promising. 

^^Wait up at the head yonder; you^re too slow 
for me!’’ he called out, as the Wireless left the 
bunch, and cut through the water like an arrow 
shot from an archer’s bow. 

^^Lookout!” warned Jack; but George who was 
quite confident concerning his own ability to 
manage his affairs, just waved a hand back, and 
continued to speed for all his racing boat was 
worth. 

Jack was sitting there where he could manage 
the wheel and continue to study the chart 
spread in front of him, when he heard a wild 
whoop from Jimmie. 

^^Look! look yander!” 

Jack was just in time to see poor Josh take a 
flying header into the water, when the speed 
boat came to an abrupt stop on, a concealed 
mudbank. 


84 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


The sound of the tremendous splash floated 
back to the ears of the others, causing Nick to 
roll over, and make the boat quiver with his 
riotous laughter; for that Josh should be the 
victim of this ridiculous accident gave the fat 
boy exceeding great joy. 


IN TERRIBLE PERIL 


85 


CHAPTER IX 

IN TERRIBLE PERIL 

^^Just what I expected!^’ exclaimed Jack, 
grimly. 

^^What was it?’’ demanded Herb; for at the 
moment it happened that the Tramp, being in 
front, obstructed the vision of those in the larger 
boat. 

^^Oh! tell me, was that really poor old clumsy 
Josh?” demanded Nick, poking his red face over 
the side of the Comfort saw a pair of legs 
up in the air, and remembered some fellow down 
at Mackinac telling us what big frogs they found 
up here along the St. Mary’s. The bass just 
love them, he said, and the bigger the frog the 
larger bass you get. That one would take in a 
whale, I guess, eh?” 

^Tt was Josh all right, for I can see George try- 
ing to get him with his boat hook right now,” 
said Jack, hardly knowing whether to laugh, or 
feel provoked on account of the possible delay. 

^^But why did Josh jump? Was he practicing 
stunts?” Nick went on innocently. 

^Well,” replied the commodore, imagine 


86 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


George made him squat up in the extreme bow, 
to sing out if he saw a shallow place ahead. And 
evidently Josh was looking all around, for he 
failed to discover a mudbank that was just hid- 
den under the surface of the water.^^ 

^^But George found it,’’ asserted Herb. 

“Trust George for findin’ anny thing at all, at 
all,” grinned Jimmie. 

“Hope he didn’t go to busting his old engine 
again. My! what a terrible time we did have 
with that cranky thing on the Mississippi,” ob- 
served Nick; who had been on board the speed 
boat during that memorable cruise down to New 
Orleans, and hence passed through an experience 
he would never, never forget. 

“I hope not,” echoed Jack. “Perhaps the 
worst is yet to come. Perhaps he ran on that 
old mudbank so hard, going at top speed as he 
was, that he won’t find it an easy job to work off 
again.” 

“That might delay us, be the powers, so we 
wouldn’t be able to pull into the ould Soo short 
of tomorry, bad cess till hasty Ge'orge!” remarked 
Jimmie. 

“Well,” remarked Nick, with a contented 
sigh, “at the worst we’ve got Jocko, you remem- 
ber, boys. Baked or stewed he’d make a meal 
for the crowd.” 

Meanwhile they were rapidly drawing closer 
to the stuck Wireless, Apparently the skipper 


IN TERRIBLE PERIL 


87 


of the stranded craft had succeeded in dragging 
his crew out of the mire, for there was a dripping 
figure on the forward deck, scraping the mud 
away, and evidently more or less bubbling over 
with various remarks. 

Jack cautioned Herb to slow down as they 
drew near. 

“Bad enough to have one held fast,^^ he said. 
“If the whole bunch got stuck, why, we^d have 
to take to the dinkies, and go ashore on Canada 
soil. How does your engine work, George? 
Nothing broken I hope?” 

“I don’t think so,” came the reply from George 
who looked somewhat humiliated, as does every 
sailor when held up on a mudbank. 

“Give it a try, and see. Reverse, and perhaps 
you’ll glide off backwards, the same way you 
went on,” Jack suggested. 

At any rate the engine worked apparently as 
well as ever; but though George put it at its 
“best licks,” as he declared, there was not a sign 
of anything going. 

Josh tried to use the setting pole, and came 
very near taking another header. 

“Say, this mud goes right along down to 
China, I reckon; leastways there ain’t any bot- 
tom to it!” he cried, as he recovered himself just 
in time. 

“We’ll take your word for it, Josh,” said 
Nick, sweetly; “because you know you’ve been 


88 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


over to see for yourseK. But I wouldn^t try it 
again. Next time perhaps you might stick your 
head in and smother. Then what would I do 
for any fun at all?” 

George kept trying every way he could think 
of, in the effort to work his boat off the bank of 
sticky mud. It was in vain. Apparently many 
unseen hands held it tight, as though unwilling 
to let the reckless skipper have another chance. 

When an hour had passed, with several false 
alarms, as George thought success was coming, 
he turned to Jack with a blank face, upon which 
disgust was plainly written. 

^^YouT have to get me out of this, commo- 
dore,” he said. own up that I donT seem 
able to budge her a bit. Even with Josh in the 
dinky, pulling like all get-out, and her engine 
rattling away at full speed astern, she won’t move 
an inch. And already we’ve lost enough time 
to make it impossible to get to the Soo by night.” 

George was apparently penitent, so Jack did 
not have the heart to rub it in at that time. 
Later on perhaps he might force the reckless one 
to promise about turning over a new leaf. 

''All right 5 we’ll soon yank you out of that, 
George. I didn’t want to propose anything 
imtil you had tried every scheme you could 
think of. Herb, throw George your painter, and 
let him make fast to the stern of the Wireless. 


IN TERRIBLE PERIL 


89 


Then IT do the same by you. In that way weT 
be able to get both boats working. If George 
starts his engine at the same time, she^s just got 
to come off, or go to pieces. Get what I mean?^’ 

^^Sure I do, and it^s a good idea,” replied the 
pilot of the Comfort, readily. 

Of course George was willing enough to accept 
any sort of assistance now. And he readily 
made the painter fast to a ringbolt at the stern 
of the speed boat. 

When all things were ready. Jack asked him 
to get his engine moving. 

^^Now, start yours up slowly. Herb,” Jack went 
on; ^Tot too fast to begin with; but gradually 
increase until you^re applying two-thirds of your 
power. Stop there, and if she refuses to budge, 
1^11 come in. WeT get her yet. She^s got to 
come, I tell you.” 

And she did, after the Tramp added her draw- 
ing facihties to those of the others. 

^^Hurrah!” shrilled Josh, when the speed boat 
started to move backwards out of her muddy 
berth; he had almost plunged over again, and 
saved himself by a quick clutch at a cleat near by. 

^^What next?” asked Herb, after they had be- 
come disentangled again, and were in a condition 
to proceed. 

^^No use thinking of making the Soo today,” 
remarked Jack. ^^Too dangerous along the 


90 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


upper reaches of this river to try it in the night. 
We can move along to the upper end of this 
island, and camp on Canadian land tonight, for 
a change.’^ 

^That sounds good to me,’’ observed Nick; but 
only suspicious looks were cast in his direction; 
for well they knew that the word ^^camp” with 
Buster was another way of spelling ^^eat.” 

^^How far would we be from the city at the 
rapids, then?” asked Herb, as they once more 
started. 

‘^Oh, we could make it in a few hours,” Jack 
replied, if all went well. ' Keep to the right of 
that smaller island. That belongs to Michigan. 
Some use the other channel; but we’ll take this 
one. You see, St. Joseph’s Island is all of fifteen 
miles long, and pretty wild in parts. Ought to 
be good hunting here in season.” 

^^Don’t I wish it was in season, then,” said 
Nick, smacking his lips. ^'Always have wanted 
to eat some venison from Canada right in camp. 
Say, fellows, if a silly old deer just went and com- 
mitted suicide before our very eyes, by jumping 
over a precipice, wouldn’t we have a right to get 
a haunch from his bally old carcase?” 

^Well,” laughed Jack, '"if a Canadian game 
warden found you in possession he’d take you 
in. So just forget all you’ve ever heard about 
juicy venison. It’s dry and tough stuff at the 


m TERRIBLE PERIL 


91 


best, and couldn^t compare with that Mackinac 
steak you bought/^ 

Nick sighed. 

^^And we have to wait till tomorrow noon be- 
fore we are in touch with a market, do we? I 
don’t ever see how we’re going to pull through. 
Tell you what, somebody ought to try for fish 
here when we stop. Looks like bass might hang 
around waiting for a chance to jump into the 
pan. How about that. Jack?” 

“Just what I had made my mind to try,” 
smiled the other, who liked nothing better than 
bringing his rod into play when there was a 
chance for game fish. 

After a while George announced that he could 
see what looked like the end of the big island 
ahead. 

“And here’s a pretty decent place to pull in,” 
declared Herb. 

As they had nothing to fear from storms or 
hoboes in such a retired nook, the boys, having 
secured their boats in proper fashion against the 
shore, where they could not rub or get into 
trouble, amused themselves as they saw fit. 

Jack, true to his promise, got out his fishing 
tackle, and proceeded to try all sorts of lures in 
the hope of tempting a bass to bite. Finally he 
took his little dinky, and began to troll, using a 
phantom minnow. Almost immediately he had 


92 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


a vicious strike, and after a struggle pulled up a 
fine fish. 

it some more!^’ called out Herb, who was 
lying on the shore, watching him at the sport. 

Five minutes afterward Jack duplicated his 
feat, only this was even a larger fish than the 
first. So the time passed. Josh was busily en- 
gaged near the tents which he. Herb and George 
had erected; while Jimmie was doing something 
aboard the Tramp. 

^ ^Where’s Nick?” asked Herb, after a long time 
had elapsed. ‘T hope the silly fellow hasn’t gone 
and lost himself now. A fine time we’d have 
hunting that fat elephant through all that bush.” 

“He was here only a little while ago,” re- 
marked George, looking up. 

“Looky yander, an’ ye’ll see him!” exclaimed 
Jimmie; “over bey ant that dead three. Sure, 
he do be sneakin’ up on something or other, and 
thryin’ till coax it till kim till him. I say the 
baste now. Oh! murdher! by all the powers, 
somebody call out till him to sthop it!” 

“Why, what’s the matter with him?” asked 
Josh, coming to life at the prospect of perhaps 
seeing his rival for high honors in the farce line 
duphcate his ridiculous feat of taking a header 
into the mud and water. 

“Look at him, would ye, the crazy wan!” 


IN TERRIBLE PERIL 


93 


gasped Jimmie, ^^thryin^ till coax a baste loike 
that!’^ 

^Ts it Jocko?^^ queried Josh, unable to catch 
sight of the other just then. 

^The httle monk ye mane?” replied Jimmie. 
‘^Och! that would be aisy now. It^s tin times 
worse than that. Call till him, Herb; I’m that 
wake I can hardly spake above a whisper. ’Tis 
a terrible danger he be in, for the animal is a 
white and black skunk; and poor innocent Nick, 
I do belave he thinks it be a pretty pussycat!” 


94 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER X 

MAROONED 

'^Leave it alone, you Buster!’’ 

‘^Get behind a tree, quick!” 

'^Run, Buster, run for your life! It’ll get 
you!” 

George, Herb and Josh sent these warning 
cries at the top of their voices. As to whether 
the object of their combined concern heard, there 
could be no reasonable doubt; for Nick imme- 
diately waved one of his fat hands disdainfully to- 
ward them. Evidently he imagined that his 
chums were envious of his great good luck in 
finding so splendid a chance to annex a beauti- 
fully striped real Canadian pussy cat. 

^^Oh! murdher!” ejaculated Jimmie, ^dook at 
the rickless fellow, would ye? Sure, he manes to 
grab it, so he do!” 

^^But he won’t, all the same!” cried George, 
grimly. 

Since shouting and gesturing seemed to have 
no effect upon the imperiled youth, all the four 
boys could do was to stand there, holding their 
breath, and watching the dreadful developments. 


MAROONED 


95 


Nor was that the first time or the last that they 
found occasion to hold their breath. 

Nick by now believed that he had wheedled 
enough, and was within proper striking distance. 
They saw him make a sudden forward swoop, 
with extended arms, as if bent upon giving the 
intended victim no possible chance of escape. 

^Wow!” yelled George, as he saw Nick stop 
short, throw up his arms, and almost fall to the 
ground. 

One terrified look Buster gave the object of 
his recent admiration. Then turning, he ran 
as well as he could toward camp, gripping his 
nose with both hands. 

^^Keep off!’’ 

^^Don’t you dare come near us, do you hear!” 

^^Now you’ve gone and done it, Buster! 
That’s what you get for wanting to bake poor 
little Jocko!” 

George, as if in desperation, jumped over and 
picked up his gun. 

^^Stop where you are!” he cried. “We’re 
willing to talk this thing over; but at a proper 
distance, do you hear, Buster?” 

Poor Nick was aghast. Almost overpowered 
by the terrible fumes as he was, it looked like 
adding insult to injury when his own chums 
turned against him, and refused to let him enter 
the camp. 


96 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


He did come to a halt some thirty feet away, 
and with one hand, clung to a sapling; while the 
other was trying to keep the powerful scent from 
smothering him. 

^^What can I do, fellows?’^ he asked, pitifully. 

George was almost bursting with laughter, 
but pretended to look as stern as his father when 
serving in his capacity as judge of the court. 

^Tirst promise that you won’t attempt to 
enter the camp without permission!” he de- 
manded. 

promise you, sure I do,” groaned Nick 
swaying weakly alongside his support. 

^^Jimmie,” went on George, ^^you go and call 
Jack in, if he isn’t on the way here already, after 
all this racket. We want everybody to have a 
hand in deciding Buster’s fate.” 

^^Good gracious!” cried the wretched Nick, 
^Vhat d’ye mean, George? Do I have to be 
shot, because I made a little mistake? I give 
you my word I really thought it was a Canada, 
species of cat. And if we had to have a menag- 
erie along with us, I was going to match her 
against your monkey. Oh! why didn’t I think? 
I ought to have known better. It was awful, 
fellows; shocking I tell you!” 

agree with you, Buster,” remarked George, 
putting his fingers up to his nose, ^ ^please go a 
little farther away. We can talk better then.” 


MAROONED 


97 


Jimmie had hardly reached the shore before 
he started back. And Jack was seen following 
close behind. Evidently, then, the fisherman 
must have heard the loud outcries, and speeded 
his little boat for the landing, anxious to know 
what could have happened to Nick. 

He had no need to be told. One hardly re- 
quired to be within sixty feet of poor Buster to 
understand the entire story. Jack did not laugh 
though doubtless later on the incident would 
afford him more or less merriment. It was a 
serious matter, as he well knew, and must affect 
every one in the party. 

^^Jack,” called out Nick, looking beseechingly 
at the commodore of the fleet, ^^take my part, 
won’t you? They want to shoot me, or do some- 
thing as bad, just because I didn’t know the gun 
was loaded. Please take that thing away from 
George. He looks so fierce I’m afraid of him!” 

So Jack, to ease the mind of the fat boy, who 
was really shivering with anticipation of dire 
results springing from his blunder, did take 
George’s gun from his unresisting hands, and laid 
it aside. 

“But Jack!” exclaimed Herb, “something’s 
just got to be done. We can’t bear to have him 
in camp with us, you know, after this. And 
think of me having to stand for that dreadful 
smell day after day. Wow! it would knock me 


98 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


out. I’d want to jump over in the deepest part 
of Lake Superior.” 

“I don’t see what can be done,” said George, 
“except to maroon him here on this foreign island 
until we come back again. By that time per- 
haps it won’t be so very bad. Herb can keep 
him in the dinky towing behind, and stand it.” 

At that poor Nick set up a fresh howl. 

“Don’t you dare think of doing that,” he 
cried, shaking his fat fist at the author of the 
suggestion. “Why, I’d starve to death in no 
time; not to speak of being devoured by the wild 
beasts. Think up some other way, won’t you, 
please. Jack? Don’t listen to George. He’s 
got it in for me because I gave him so much 
bother on that Mississippi cruise. I want you 
to fix it up. Jack. You’ll know how.” 

Jack still looked very grave. 

“Well, you understand that in a case of this 
kind only desperate remedies will do, Buster?” 
he began. 

“Yes, yes, I know;” whimpered the other, “and 
I’m willing to do anything you say. Jack; but 
don’t leave me here over in a Canadian wilder- 
ness. It ain’t human, that’s what!” 

“All right,” Jack proceeded, solemnly, “if you 
give me your solemn promise to obey. First of 
all you must strip off every bit of clothes you 
have on.” 


MAROONED 


99 


Nick began at once, and with eagerness. 

^Will it wash out, then? Oh! I can rub like 
a good fellow, I promise you; only give me a 
chance!^’ he exclaimed. 

the washing in the world wouldn^t take 
that scent out,^^ George declared. 

^'There^s only one way, and that is to bury the 
clothes!’^ said Jack. 

“What?^' gasped the astonished Nick; ^'and 
me go naked? Good gracious! Jack, I just can^t 
do that! Make it easier for me, won^t you? 
Why, I^d get my death of cold. Besides, what 
would I do when we got to the Soo? Please tell 
me something else.” 

At that the boys could hold in no longer, and 
a shout told that they were beginning to see the 
comical side. But Jack waved his hands. 

^^Be still !” he said, sternly. ^This is no laugh- 
ing matter. Never fear Buster, but you^U be 
able to rake up enough clothes to last till we get 
to the Soo, where you can buy a new outfit. Off 
with every stitch, now. Then you must dig a 
hole and bury them; or else carry the lot deep 
into the bush here, as you choose.” 

^Ts that all?” asked Nick, tremulously, as he 
hastily tore the last remnant of his garments 
from his stout person. 

'^Not quite,” replied Jack. ''Get rid of the 
stuff next. Then come back to where you are 


100 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


now. I^U be waiting for you with a pair of short 
scissors I happen to have along with me; for you 
see IVe just got to cut all your hair off!'’ 

“Oh! what a guy I'll be, Jack," moaned poor 
Nick. “I'll sure never hear the last of this thing.' ' 

“Think of us!" said George, sternly, “how we 
must remember it for days and days. You're 
getting off dirt cheap, Buster, let me tell you. 
I've heard of fellows who had to live like her- 
mits in the woods for weeks." 

“Now get busy," observed Jack. “The boys 
wiU be rooting out your bag, and I'll fetch what 
clothes we can gather to you. We must do all 
we can to smother this perfumery factory." 

“Yes, be off wid ye!" said Jimmie, bent on 
having a hand in the game. 

Nick stared mournfully at the clothes on the 
ground. Then he slowly gathered them up in 
his arms. They noticed that as he walked away 
he looked around with exceeding care at every 
step he took, as though not for worlds would he 
want to renew his acquaintance with that pretty 
striped Canadian pussy cat. 

Jack was as good as his word. When George 
and Herb had collected an outfit calculated to 
serve poor Nick until they reached a land of 
plenty, and clothing estabhshments, he carried 
the lot to the place appointed. 

Here came Nick presently with a most dejected 


MAROONED 


101 


air; and groaning in spirit the fat boy allowed the 
other to shear off all his abundant locks. 

He certainly did look like a guy when the job 
was completed, for Jack made no pretentions 
towards being a barber, and there were places 
that had the appearance of being ^^chopped with 
an axe,’’ as George privately declared later, 
when viewing the work of the commodore. 

After that they made Nick take a long bath. 
Indeed he thought he would never get out of the 
water, and his teeth were chattering before the 
embargo was finally raised. 

Fortunately that wonderful red sweater which 
had attracted the bull toward the wearer not so 
very long since, had been safe aboard at the time 
of his recent mishap, so that Nick could depend 
on its warmth. He was grateful for small favors 
just then; and quite subdued for a whole day; 
though nothing could keep a buoyant nature 
like his iji subjection long. 

Of course he would never hear the last of the 
joke, and must stand for all manner of scoffing 
remarks, as well as uplifted noses when he came 
around. But Nick would live it down in time. 

And no doubt, when the account of the cruise 
was read over during the next winter, Nick would 
join in the general laugh when he discovered that 
Jack had called this temporary stopping place 
on Canadian soil “Kitty Kamp.” 


102 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


It was night before Nick was allowed to come 
into camp; and even then they made him do 
penance by sitting off in a corner by himself, 
“just like I was a leper,’’ as he declared, though 
bound to submit to the indignity. 

But “it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” 
and at least Nick escaped guard duty that night, 
for nobody wanted to sit up with him. 

George declared that the very first thing he 
meant to purchase when he arrived at the city 
at the rapids was a bottle of violet water, with 
which he could saturate himself for a season. 

But by morning the terrible effect had in part 
died away; though possibly familiarity bringing 
about contempt may have had considerable to do 
with their noticing the disagreeable scent less. 

Of course all of them were glad to get away 
from that camp. To Nick in particular its 
memory would always evoke a shiver. When 
brought to book in connection with the adven- 
ture he always declared that it was what a fellow 
got for wanting to invade foreign countries, and 
meddle with unfamiliar animals belonging there. 

But Jack and the others felt sure that Buster 
from that day forth would know the great Amer- 
ican skunk a mile off, and shy at a closer ac- 
quaintance. 

They got away at a reasonable time, and con- 
tinued their northern progress through the 


MAROONED 


103 


crooked St. Mary^s River. On the way they saw 
numerous nooks that aroused the sportsman 
spirit in Jack; for he just knew the gamy bass 
lurked in those inviting waters, awaiting the 
coming of the fisherman. But there was no 
time to spend just then in seeking sport. 

At about eleven o^clock they passed the smaller 
rapids, a most picturesque spot, where the water 
rushed boiling through many channels, and innu- 
merable lurking places for the spotted trout 
seemed to invite a stay. But the Soo was now 
close at hand, and all of them were eager to look 
upon the famous big rapids, unexcelled for beauty 
and grandeur in all the land. 

When the three motor boats presently reached 
a point where the little city on the left hand shore 
as well as the foamy rapids, and the railroad 
bridge stretching from Canada to the Michigan 
bank, came into view, the boys involuntarily 
waved their hats, and sent forth a cheer. 


104 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER XI 

DOWN THE SOO RAPIDS 

* ^ ^Alabama! here we rest!’^ cried George, as they 

kept booming along up the strong current of the 
river, until a spot was reached just below the foot 
of the rapids. 

Not many steamers stop at the Soo, save those 
which run in connection with the tourist travel, 
between Mackinac and the rapids city. But 
there is a constant procession of steamers, and 
whaleback grain barges going in both directions, 
day and night, all during some seven months of 
the year. The tonnage of the government canal 
through which these boats pass around the 
rapids far exceeds that of the Suez Canal for the 
entire twelve months. 

After finding a responsible party in whose 
charge the three brave little boats could be left, 
the cruisers proceeded to take in the sights. 

Of course the rapids came first, and they view- 
ed these from every angle. Jack was also deeply 
interested in the government fish hatchery on the 
little island; and watched with an envious eye 
the various pools in which scores of enormous 


DOWN THE SOO 


105 


speckled trout, weighing upward of seven pounds, 
were kept. 

“Wait till we get to the Agawa,” he said, shak- 
ing his head with determination. “I want to 
find out how some of those whoppers feel at the 
end of a line.’^ 

Nick had made for a clothing emporium, where 
he fitted himself out in some new clothes. Of 
course he did not explain just why this was nec- 
essary; but judging from the suspicious looks 
cast upon him every time he came near the clerk, 
the latter could give a shrewd guess concerning 
the truth. 

Jack was stiU watching some of those giant 
trout jump out of the water in the pool when he 
dangled a long blade of blue grass so as to make 
the feathery end touch the surface like a fly, 
when George joined him; for they had settled 
upon the hatchery as a sort of rendezvous where 
they could come together, so as to take the thrill- 
ing ride down the rapids in a big Indian canoe. 

“All off. Jack!” said George, trying to look 
sober; though there was a merry twinkle in his 
black eyes that belied the solemn cast of his face. 

“What do you mean?” asked the other. 
“Anything more happened to that fellow Buster? 
Or perhaps it^s Josh who^s bent on halting our 
expedition now, with some caper. Go on, tell 
me.” 


106 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^^Oh! you^re away off,” grinned George. 
only meant to inform you that they^re gone on 
ahead of us.” 

“I suppose you mean the Mermaid/^ Jack re- 
marked. 

^That^s right,” George responded, promptly. 
^Teft here this very morning for a cruise through 
the Big Lake. Went through the canal about 
breakfast time. Seems as if we^re just bound to 
keep tagging at their heels, don^t it, Jack? I 
suppose we^U hear a howl from Buster now, be- 
cause he is cheated out of seeing that fat Miss 
Sallie again.” 

^^Buster has enough to think of in other direc- 
tions, I suspect,” smiled Jack. 

“Well, I should guess so,” added the other. 
“Imagine, if you please, Nick trying to call on 
any young lady at present. She^d be apt to have 
a swooning speU. For a time Buster will have 
to cut out all thoughts of girls^ society. He can 
thank his lucky stars that his chums allow him to 
hang around.” 

“Have you had any lunch?” asked Jack. 

“I think there^s the rest of the bunch coming 
along the stone walk by the canal, right now. 
Perhaps we’d better postpone our little ride down 
the rapids xmtil we get a bite. Buster will be 
starved.” 

“There he is dogging the footsteps of the rest,” 


DOWN THE SOO 


107 


remarked Jack. ^^Herb is being cruel to the poor 
old chap. He won^t let him join them. I guess 
he^s suffered about enough by now, and we^U 
have to let up on it.” 

^^Sure we will,” agreed impulsive George. 
^ ^Anyhow, we wouldn^t have the nerve to make 
Buster take a canoe by himself, and shoot the 
rapids. Let^s start out and j oin them. Perhaps 
Buster had discovered a good feed place, in his 
wanderings about the town.” 

^^Ten to one he^s noticed a dozen; and perhaps 
had a few bites before now,” and Jack led the 
way across the little bridge connecting the is- 
land where the hatchery was situated, with the 
main shore. 

Nick gladly admitted that he had marked a 
promising restaurant during his foraging expe- 
dition in search of the suit of clothes, which he 
had taken to the boat and donned. 

^Tt ain^t a tony place, fellows,” he argued; 
^^but considering the circumstances, er — I 
thought we wouldn^t care for style.” 

^^Why, no, not just at present, Buster;” 
George said. ^^YouVe got a level head for once. 
We^re going to forgive you now, and restore you 
to good standing, on condition that you never, 
never again try to stock the camp with a menag- 
erie of strange animals.” 

Nick promptly held up his right hand. 


108 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


give you my word, boys, and thank you. 
Please overlook any slight association between 
myself and our recent invasion of Canada. And 
now come along. I tell you I feel as if I could 
clean out all the restaurants in the Soo. I only 
took a light breakfast you know, because of low 
spirits.’^ 

Josh held up both hands in despair, though he 
said not a word. There are times when silence 
is much more suggestive than any flow of lan- 
guage; and every one understood. 

An hour or so later, before half-past two, they 
were on the little beach, talking with a couple of 
wiry-looking men, who claimed to be sons of the 
famous old guide of the rapids, John Boucher, 
who died a few years ago, after having carried 
thousands and thousands of summer tourists in 
his canoe through those swirling rapids, without 
ever a disaster. 

Then the entire bunch of six boys took their 
places in the big and staunch canoe, with a wield- 
er of the paddle at either end. Jack happened 
to occupy a position near the man in the stern, 
whose post is always the more important, since 
he guides the destinies of the swiftly running 
craft, while the one in the bow fends off from im- 
pending rocks. 

Jack had taken this position more to observe 
how the experience affected his chums than for 


DOWN THE SOO 


109 


any other reason. He certainly never once 
dreamed that there might be a Providence in such 
a small thing as his choice of position. 

Then began the first stage of the run, with the 
two Indians pushing the laden craft upstream by 
means of stout poles. They kept close to the 
shore, finding a way around the numerous rocks, 
and other obstacles, where the water boiled 
madly 5 and by slow degrees approached the rail- 
way bridge, under which the start is generally 
made. 

^^AinT this simply glorious?” demanded Herb, 
as they found themselves surrounded by the 
churning waters, and gradually leaving the shore 
farther away. 

^^Wait!” said George, '^if you think this is fine, 
what will you have to say when we get to running 
the rapids in fact? IVe been through some 
smaller than these, and can guess how it feels.” 

^^My! I^d like to keep doing it all day!” re- 
markedNick,feelingsomething'like himself again, 
since he had been restored to favor once more. 

^‘Well, at the rate of fifty per, your bank 
account would soon collapse. Besides, they say 
that the excitement is bad on fat people, so that 
they lose weight right along,” George observed. 

^^YouTe joshing me, I know, George,” de- 
clared the other. ^Tf I believed you, I^d be 
tempted to stay over here while you fellows went 


no 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


on, and keep going all day, so I could cut off, say 
about thirty pounds or so. No, I wouldn't 
either; I forgot!" 

“Yes, I should think you did forget Sallie," 
jeered Herb. “If you got out of her class she'd 
never forgive you, Buster. Besides, perhaps 
she wouldn't even see you if you wasted away to 
a shadow. Better leave well enough alone, and 
enjoy the good things of life." 

“Here we go now; they're heading straight out 
on to the river!" cried Josh, as he nervously 
clutched the side of the big canoe near him; for 
they were seated two and two, with Jack just 
behind and George in front, as the boat narrowed. 

The Indian guides were indeed pushing strenu- 
ously now, and when the water deepened both of 
them dropped their poles in the bottom of the 
canoe, to seize upon stout paddles and wield 
them furiously. 

It was intended to reach a certain point in the 
river before turning the prow of the craft down 
toward the head of the rapids. 

Long familiarity, every day in the week during 
the season, and many times a day, had made 
every rock and swirl known to these men. But 
although they knew the main channel like a book, 
seldom did any crew dare venture as close to the 
terrible jaws of the whirlpool as the veteran guide 
of the rapids. Old John Boucher, had always 


DOWN THE SOO 


111 


made it a practice of taking his parties. 

Jack had looked several times at the man in the 
stern. Somehow, he did not wholly like his ap- 
pearance. There was something about him to 
signify that he must have recently arisen from a 
sick bed. Perhaps, tempted by an influx of 
tourists, and the demand for experienced guides 
to take them through the rapids, he had come 
back to work a bit too soon! 

^‘He doesnT seem as strong as the others,” 
Jack was thinking, even as he turned his head 
from time to time as if to see what lay behind, 
while they were pushing up the sturdy current. 
“I can hear him pant as if short of breath. 
Goodness! 1 hope now nothing is going to happen 
to him while we’re spinning along down through 
these old rapids. They say that whirlpool would 
swallow up anything; and that Old John was the 
only man whoever went into it, and came out 
alive. Whew!” 

But Jack did not whisper these fears to his 
comrades. It was too late to change steersman 
now; and why spoil all their pleasure? 

After all, no doubt there was not so much 
strength needed once they began to move 
swiftly along with the current, going half a mile 
in a couple of minutes, they had been told, 
though Jack doubted the accuracy of that state- 
ment at first. 


112 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Apparently the guides had overshot the mark 
at which they aimed; for as the canoe was turned, 
in the shadow of the bridge, Jack saw that the 
man in the bow glanced apprehensively over his 
shoulder while he knelt there, and immediately 
began to paddle furiously, as tjiough trying to 
bring the boat back a little toward the American 
shore. 

Had they gone too far, and were they speeding 
down in the track taken by the one daring prince 
of guides — a course that would actually skirt the 
verge of that whirlpool, of which such terrible 
things were said? 

Jack shut his teeth hard at the thought. Then 
he gave himself up to the keen enjoyment of that 
glorious ride, when the canoe was seized upon as 
by invisible hands, and borne along at lightning 
speed. 

Looking at the water alongside, foam-specked 
as it was, one could not believe the boat was 
moving at all, because both kept company. But 
all that was needed was for the voyager to raise 
his eyes, and send a look toward the shore, when 
he must realize the tremendous rapidity with 
which his frail craft was being carried along. 

Things just seemed to fairly flit past, as though 
they were aboard a fast railway train. The boys 
were evidently enjoying the novel experience to 
the full, for their heads were constantly turning 


DOWN THE SOO 


113 


from side to side, and all seemed to be talking at 
once. 

Jack was nervously looking ahead and on the 
left, for he knew they must now be approaching 
the whirlpool, where the eddying waters went 
furiously round and round and the center seemed 
to be a deep hole, like the dent a gigantic top 
would make in the mud. 

Yes, there it was beyond, and they were speed- 
ing down at a pace that made one dizzy to notice 
it. He could feel that both Indian guides were 
paddling desperately away from the lefty as 
though fearing that they were too close to the 
verge of that death chasm! 

What if a paddle chanced to break right then 
and there? They carried spare ones fortunately 
— Jack had noted that; but all the same he hoped 
nothing of the sort would come about. 

Hardly had this chilly idea flashed into Jack’s 
mind than he heard what seemed to be a groan 
close to his ear. At the same time he felt the 
boat quiver in a suspicious manner. Turning 
instantly the boy was horrified to see that the 
Indian guide in the rear had crumpled in his 
place, with his head fallen forward, and seemed 
to be gasping for breath. 

He had collapsed just at the most dreadful 
moment, when the canoe was swooping down 
close to the edge of the whirlpool! 


114 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER XII 

WINNING AN INDIAN^S ADMIRATION 

Fortunately for all of them, Jack Stormways 
was not given to fear. In emergencies he acted 
from intuition, rather than through thinking 
things out, no matter however speedily. 

There may come times when a second counts 
for everything. Jack believed such an occasion 
was now upon them; and he acted instantly. 

The man in falling forward had pushed his 
paddle alongside Jack. It was as plain an invi- 
tation to fill his place as could have been given. 

Making one swoop the boy snatched up the 
stout blade, and instantly dipped it over the 
port side. Desperately he exerted his strength; 
to steer the canoe away from the fatal eddies 
that sought to draw them still further into the 
vortex. 

The Indian in the bow may have suspected 
something of what had occurred; but he dared 
not turn his head now, or take his attention away 
from the rocks ahead for even one lone second. 

As for the five boys, they were all staring at the 
near-by whirlpool as though actually fascinated 


WINNING THE INDIAN 


115 


by its terrors; and not suspecting how close they 
were to plunging straight into its grip. 

With every atom of his strength did Jack work, 
dipping as deeply as he could, and striving 
against the giant power of the mill race on which 
they were speeding. 

The edge of the circling current was horribly 
close; in fact they seemed to skirt its very border, 
closer perhaps than even the veteran guide ever 
carried his cargoes of tourists, when in his prime. 

Jack fairly held his breath as the crisis came. 
He did not know, could not tell whether they 
would win out or not. It was an experience that 
would doubtless continue to haunt the lad for a 
long time. Perhaps he would awaken in the 
night with a start and a low cry, having dreamed 
that once again he sat in the canoe with the dark 
skinned steersman fallen in a faint, and the 
hungry maw of the whirlpool yawning so very 
close on their left that one could have tossed a 
chip directly into it. 

^^Wowl wasnT that a close shave though, 
boys?'' shouted George, half turning his head to 
look at his mates; and then following his words 
with another cry: ^^Look at Jack, would you? 
Great governor! what happened?" 

And as the others twisted around to look, they 
were amazed to discover that Jack was wielding 
that paddle like a veteran, his face as white as 


116 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


chalk, and his eyes staring; but his teeth firmly 
pressed together, with a look of grim determina- 
tion on his young face. 

Not a word was spoken until they had passed 
the last bristling rock, and spun out below where 
the foamy water took on a less violent aspect. 

Then Bedlam broke loose. 

^^Sit still, all of you!’^ cried Jack, as he saw a 
movement on the part of his chums to get up; 
^ ^you’ll upset the canoe yet, if you try that. 
Wait till we reach the shore, and you^ll know 
about it. The man has fainted, that^s all; and 
I had to take his place.’’ 

‘^But he was all right when we started, for I 
looked around and saw him,” declared Herb. 

^That’s true,” Jack answered. ^^He keeled 
over just before we got to the whirlpool, and as he 
dropped his paddle right beside me, all I had to 
do was to dip it in, and exert myseK a little.” 

little!” echoed George, with thrilling em- 
phasis, ^dook at the beads of sweat on his fore- 
head, fellows! Jack, honest now, you must have 
saved all our lives. Ugh! just to think, if the 
boat had swerved then, where would we be right 
now?” 

They looked at each other, and turned paler 
than when passing through the yeasty waters of 
the rapids. But Jack tried to make’ light of it all. 

^^Oh! shucks!” he laughed, though his voice 


WINNING THE INDIAN 


117 


trembled a bit in spite of his wonderful nerve; 
‘^any of you would have done the same thing. 
Why, there was nothing else to do, to tell the 
truth.” 

^^Me?” exclaimed Nick; ^T’d sure have been so 
frozen with horror that all I could do would have 
been to grab hold of the boat, and shut my eyes. 
Kept ’em shut part of the time, anyhow. Felt 
like I had an awful temptation to just jump out 
of the boat, and into that nice water that was 
singing and gurgling along beside us.” 

guess you’d better never try the rapids any 
more then, Buster,” said George, ^4f that’s the 
way it affected you. I remember now hearing 
you say you never was able to walk on the ties 
of a railroad bridge, or look over a precipice, be- 
cause something made you dizzy.” 

They reached the shore near the small house 
where Old John Boucher and his family, one of 
the sons said to be a preacher, lived in the days 
gone by. When the boys climbed out of the 
canoe, the Indian stepped in to help his comrade, 
who had by then come out of his swoon, and was 
able to feebly walk. 

To the surprise of Jack the Indian who had 
been in the bow stopped to hold out his hard- 
skinned hand, and squeeze that of the boy. 

^'You Jack all right! Think it all over 
with everybody when Jim he fall. But you 


118 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


do right, think. Bully!’’ was what he said. 

^^Hurray!” shouted Nick, waving his new hat 
wildly. 

^Three cheers and a tiger for our commodore!” 
exclaimed George; and they were given with a 
vim that caused many on the stone walk along 
the canal embankment to look down in wonder 
toward the little group. 

Nor would the guide accept any pay for the 
trip. They could not force it on him. 

^^You ride with me all time, and not cf^nt pay. 
Jack!” he declared, his black eyes sparkling with 
sincere admiration as he looked in the face of the 
white boy. 

Of course the voyagers had lots to talk about 
while they continued their exploration of the 
city on the great canal. They even climbed the 
hill near where the government barracks stood 
during the Spanish-American war, and obtained 
a fine view of the entire neighborhood. Yet 
nothing attracted their attention as did the ever 
rushing rapids, where the waters of the greatest 
inland sea in the world emptied into the river 
that was to bear them through the other lakes 
in the chain, and by way of the St. Lawrence 
River, to the far-distant sea. 

The thrilling adventure had apparently sober- 
ed the boys too, for there was much less 
horse play than usual, nor were jokes in 


WINNING THE INDIAN 


119 


order for the balance of that day. 

Having some time to spare they took the ferry- 
boat, and crossed to the Canadian side of the 
river below the rapids. Here they viewed the 
other canal, through w,hich considerable com- 
merce also passes, principally Canadian. 

They also took advantage of their ^ Visit 
abroad,’’ as George called it, to inspect the big 
pulp mills, where spruce logs were ground up, 
and made into sheets that would later on become 
paper. 

The latter end of the day was put in securing 
provisions calculated to last for a week or more, 
since they could not tell when another chance to 
procure supplies might come their way, once they 
embarked upon the bosom of Lake Superior. 

Nick was once more in his element. He sug- 
gested all sorts of things that he had read about 
in his cook book. Had they sent him forth, with 
plenty of money and unlimited assurance, the 
chances were, as George declared, the expedition 
would have had to hire another boat, just to 
transport the stuff that fellow would have flooded 
them with. 

'T bet he’d buy out a whole grocery store, 
given half a chance,” said Josh. 

^'Why, we’ve got all the stuff right now we can 
stow away comfortably,” declared Herb, scratch- 
ing his head as he^contemplated the numerous 


120 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


packages, and then looking toward his boat 
near by. 

^^Do as we suggested before, Herb,’’ said Josh. 

^^What was that?” demanded Nick, sus- 
piciously. 

^^Make Buster take up his quarters in the 
dinky. It’ll be a ride that might take the shine 
off even that dash down the rapids.” 

“Not any,” asserted the fat boy strenuously. 
“I’m too heavy for such monkey shines. Josh 
likes the water better than I do. You all saw 
how he can dive so gracefully just as if he had 
taken lessons from a granddaddy frog. If any- 
body has to be quartered in a dinky to make 
room, he’s the chap, all right.” 

But after a while the last package was put 
away, and places found for aU. 

George drew Jack aside as the others were 
arranging things aboard the various boats. 

“I’ve been making a few inquiries as to 
whether another small motor boat went through 
here,” he remarked. 

“Oh! yes, I’d come near forgetting Clarence,” 
laughed Jack. “And I suppose he took the canal 
several days ago. He must have gained on us 
while we were losing time, stuck in the mud, 
stormbound and such things.” 

“WeU, he didn’t go through here, anyhow,” 
replied George. “And the chances are ten to 


WINNING THE INDIAN 


121 


one he’d never think of using the Canadian locks.” 

“But he had a good start of us,” remarked his 
chum. 

“Well, do you think the Wireless is bound to 
monopolize all the mud in the St. Mary’s river?” 
exclaimed George, indignantly. “I guess Clar- 
ence has stuck somewhere on the way up; and 
as he didn’t have any bully chums to pull him 
off he’s there yet!” 

“We didn’t see anything of him,” mused Jack; 
“but then, there were lots of times when we had 
a choice of channels. Even the big boats take 
one of two that are buoyed and targeted. Yes, 
Clarence might have chosen one we let alone. 
But of course, if he hasn’t passed through the 
canal, he must still be below.” 

“I’m sorry,” George remarked, gloomily. 

“I suppose so, because you’re only thinking of 
that grand race you expected to pull off with your 
old rival, sooner or later. But the less I see of 
Clarence the better I’m pleased.” 

“Do we go ashore to a restaurant tonight. 
Jack?” continued the other. 

“Let the others decide,” Jack replied. “As 
for me, I think it would be the best thing to do. 
Josh is being overworked, as it is, and needs a 
little rest. Besides, Buster will be tickled, be- 
cause that would leave more grub in the bunch 
for the future.’’ 


122 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Little Jocko, the monkey, had made himseK 
quite at home with the boys. They took turns 
having him aboard, and he furnished consider- 
able fun for the crowd with his antics. As yet 
he had not become quite reconciled to Nick, and 
always showed his white teeth whenever the fat 
boy came around. But by treating him to 
choice bits of food Buster was winning the little 
chap over by degrees. 

The balance were of the same mind as Jack 
when the proposition was put up to them. And 
accordingly they went to dinner in two detach- 
ments, Nick being with the first, and serving as a 
connecting link between both; for he was still 
there when Jack, Jimmie and George arrived at 
the eatinghouse; and sat them out in the bar- 
gain. 

Still, the second squad had enough, and could 
not complain that Nick had made a famine in 
that particular restaurant; which Josh had hinted 
was possible, when telling them how the fat boy 
had refused to leave when they did. ' 

It was an entirely different night they spent 
there at the Soo, from .most of the quiet ones of 
the trip. Much noise continued throughout the 
livelong night; for the lock is lighted by electric- 
ity, and vessels can keep passing up and down 
the nineteen feet rise and fall at any and 
all hours. 


WINNING THE INDIAN 


123 


Frequently during the night the hoarse whistle 
of some big steamer, or a tug towing whaleback 
barges, would sound close at hand, awakening 
those who were not accustomed to this bustling 
nature of things. 

In the morning all of them declared that they 
had passed an uneasy night; and professed to be 
delighted because it would not be repeated. 

^ ^Tonight we hope to be in camp somewhere 
along the quiet shore of the Big Lake,’' said 
George, yawning and stretching. 

^^Yes,” added Jack, with kindling eyes, ^ Vhere 
those whoppers of speckled beauties are to be 
found, if looked for.” 

^^Yum! yum! speed the hour!” mumbled Nick; 
and of course no one needed to be told that al- 
ready his thoughts were turning to the glowing 
camp fire, and the tempting odors that would 
arise when the coffee pot was on, and the pink 
trout sputtering in the several fryingpans. 

And shortly afterward, breakfast having been 
eaten at the same restaurant, which had evi- 
dently laid in a new lot of supplies since their last 
raid, they entered the big lock, to have the boats 
elevated to the upper level. 


124 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER XIII 

THE GREAT INLAND SEA 

It was just ten o^clock when the trio of little 
motor boats started out of the canal, and headed 
for the open lake far beyond. Long afterward 
they could look back, and see the stone electricity 
building between the two locks of the canal; and 
in imagination the picture as viewed from its top 
would haunt them, with the churning rapids 
occupying the center of the scene. 

Leaving the canal at its juncture with the 
river, they were soon in the neck of the lake. Far 
as the eye could reach, and many times farther, 
stretched the sparkling water, as clear as crystal; 
and cold enough to satisfy any one, even on as 
hot a day as this August one promised to be. 

At noon they found a good chance to go ashore. 
Nick of course was solemnly warned that this 
was sacred Canadian soil, and that on no account 
was he to try and purloin any strangely marked 
animals he might discover prowling around. 

^^You know they have some queer beasts in 
these foreign lands, Buster,’’ George remarked, 
shaking a finger before the other’s stubby nose. 


GREAT INLAND SEA 


125 


^^And make up your mind right now that you’re 
going to let ’em all severely alone. Some time 
you can join an expedition sent out to Africa, to 
scoop up all sorts of freak cats and sich; but 
while you’re with us we’d rather you restrained 
that curiosity of yours. It’s going to get you 
in trouble, some fine day, Buster, you hear me?” 

“That’ll do for you, George. Just wait, and 
.see Jf I don’t have a chance to get back on you 
iyetV' ^replied the other, complacently. “But 
.would you look at Josh, what he’s bringing ashore 
now? Fish, as sure as you live. Bully for Josh! 
White fish, too, the best that grow in these 
waters, barring none. Tell us, where did you 
catch ’em. Josh?” 

“With a silver hook, and from one of the In- 
dian guides.” replied the cook. “He netted 
’em in the rapids, I guess. Heard that earlier 
in the season they get tons and tons of fish that 
way; two men in a boat, one in the bow to use 
the net, and the other to hold the canoe against 
the current with a pole. Bet you they’ll eat 
fine, too.” 

“I’ll help you clean ’em. Josh,” volunteered 
Nick. 

“All right, then; get busy, Buster. Anyhow, 
you know a good thing when you see it,” returned 
the cook, only too willing to hand over the disa- 
greeable task. 


126 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


remarked George, as he and Jack lay 
there in the shade, waiting for the lunch call; 
^^We^re well on our way to the Agawa river 
region. Think well make it today, commo- 
dore?” 

^T^m afraid not,” replied Jack. ^Tn the first 
place it looks dubious over yonder, as though we 
might get one of these famous Lake Superior 
storms you read about. If that drops in on us, 
we wouldnT like to be caught out on the open, 
you know, George.” 

^^Well, excuse me, if you please,” returned the 
other, with a shrug of his shoulders that spoke 
louder than his words. ^ ^Storms and my speed 
boat donT seem to agree very well. When one 
comes hustling along I prefer to be behind some 
sort of shelter, where I can laugh at the wind and 
the waves. But you spoke as if there might be 
still another reason for our not getting to the 
river tonight?” 

^There is,” Jack answered. ^^This time you 
may have the laugh on Herb.” 

“Say, you don't mean to tell me that the 
staunch old engine in the Comfort has been up 
to any antics?” exclaimed George; not without 
a touch of exultation in his voice; for Herb had 
jeered at him so many times, on account of his 
troubles, it was only natural that he should feel 
a little gratification to know there were others. 


GREAT INLAND SEA 


127 


“Yes, it developed after we left the Soo,’’ Jack 
went on. “Just like these mean things always 
do, you know. He^s been limping along for the 
last half hour. Of course there^s no telling How 
serious it may be. Let^s hope we can fix it in 
short order. Some of us had better get at it 
right after lunch.” 

“If anybody can put it in apple pie order I 
guess you can. Jack,” George said 5 “and if you 
need any help call on me, because you know 
Herb isn^t much of a mechanic.” 

“That^s kind of you, George,” said Herb, who 
happened to be coming over to where the two 
were talking at the time. “That^s the best 
thing about the motor boat boys; they like to 
josh each other, and get lots of fun out of things; 
but when it comes right down to trouble there 
isn’t one of them who wouldn’t do everything in 
his power to help a chum.” 

The call to eat caused them to make haste to 
gather around. In fact, there was always an 
involuntary sort of race to the mess table when 
the meals were eaten on shore, so that all par- 
took. On this very day Josh noticed this fact 
particularly and made mention of it. 

“Say, do you know you fellows are that prompt 
you just seem to jump into your places?” he said. 
“I start to pound a fryingpan with my big 
spoon, and before I get in five licks all of 


128 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


you are in a ring waiting for grub/^ 

grunted George, “nothing funny about 
that. We have to!’’ 

Nick of course took that as a reflection on him, 
and bridled up at once. 

“That’s unkind of you, George,” he protested. 
“I was never known to take any fellow’s share. 
An equal division is my rule always. And if 
some one chooses to decline a portion of his 
prog; and my appetite is not satisfied, what 
harm in commandeering the remains?” 

“Oh! you’re all right. Pudding; George is only 
tapping you as he does us all, when he gets the 
chance,” Herb said. 

“Well, I take my punishment decently, when 
my turn comes, don’t I?” demanded George, as 
he received a generous portion of a delicious 
white fish, which had been rolled in egg, and 
cracker crumbs, and then cooked and browned 
in the grease from some salt pork placed hr 
pans until it fried out. 

“Sure you do;” Jack laughingly : marked. 
“And now forget all your troubles, fellows, and 
get down to work. Look out for bc' 3. I’ve 
eaten white fish plenty of times, and they 
they’re never so good unless cooked right where 
they’re caught.” 

“I believe it too,” Josh continued. “Just like 
the pompano an uncle of mine used to tell us he 


GREAT INLAND SEA 


129 


caught down in Florida — used to jump in the 
boat, he said; and as they’re a delicate, white- 
flesh flsh like this, putting them on ice a week or 
so takes the flavor out. It also makes them 
crumble up when cooked.” 

“How is it, Buster?” Herb asked; but Nick 
only rolled his eyes, and kept on mimching as 
though the fate of nations depended on his ability 
to clear off his tin platter within a given time. 

When Nick was eating he wasted mighty little 
breath in talking, leaving all of that for more 
convenient times. Besides, he had a perfect 
horror of some time getting a flsh bone in his 
throat. 

“Wouldn’t matter much with a lanky fellow 
like Josh, you see,” he once said, in commenting 
on this fear; “because anybody could stick his 
flst down, and yank the fish-bone out; but my 
neck is so fat I’d choke to death long before you 
could say Jack Robinson. So don’t bother me 
eating flsh, please.” 

Aiterwards Jack and George took a look at the 
engine of ^he Comfort. After doing a little tin- 
kering they announced that it would probably 
run fairly Veil during the afternoon; but before 
.t^cvrting on another day’s trip more would have 
to be done to it. 

This was not very comforting to Herb; but 
he made the best of a bad bargain; and with 


130 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


light hearts the motor boys again started forth. 

Jack kept an anxious eye on the southwestern 
sky. He did not altogether like the looks of 
things in that particular quarter, and was re- 
solved that if they discovered a promising camp- 
site in the afternoon, they could not afford to 
pass it by, if it afforded an offing for the boats. 

That tremendous sea, stretching for several 
hundred miles away to the west, opened appall- 
ing possibilities in the way of a gale. The 
staunchest steamers that ever plied the fresh 
water seas would sometimes be as putty in the 
grasp of a summer storm; and what of the three 
puny mosquito craft that were as chips on the 
water? 

At three o^clock Herb announced that his 
engine was getting worse instead of better. And 
about the same time a welcome hail from George, 
who was moving along in the van as usual, told 
that he had by the aid of his glasses sighted a 
shelter. 

^Then it^s us to go ashore,^’ declared Jack; nor 
was any one sorry in their hearts; since a httle 
while before a distant sound like thunder had 
been borne to their ears from the low-down patch 
of hovering clouds. 

The retreat promised to be all the shelter they 
wanted, though it would hardly have answered 
for larger boats. Immediately aU became as 


GREAT INLAND SEA 


131 


busy as beavers, the two tents being raised, and 
stoutly secured, so that any ordinary gale could 
not carry the canvas off like a balloon. 

Jack had hardly finished his share of the work 
before he got out his rod, and busied himself in 
trying for trout; for he fancied that they were 
to be found in the clear waters near by this cove, 
where a limpid little stream emptied into the 
Great Lake. 

Nick, they all noticed, stuck close to camp. It 
would have to be something very attractive that 
could induce him to wander far from his fireside, 
especially when the camp was pitched on Cana- 
dian soil, where they grew such queer kitties. 

This time it was Jimmie who seemed destined 
to get into a peck of trouble. Jack always de- 
clared that there seemed to be an evil spirit 
forever hovering around their camp, looking for 
chances to accomplish his work; and let there ap- 
pear the least kind of an opening, and he was 
ready to jump in. 

Jimmie was not much of a hunter or fisher- 
man, though able to do either on occasion. But 
he did have a little fancy for wild flowers, and 
liked to pry around on occasion, seeing what he 
could discover. 

Now, at this late day in the season, he knew 
he was not apt to run across any of these pretty 
gems of the woods; but there seemed to be some 


132 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


sort of fascination about poking here and there 
examining a bunch of magnificent moss of a pat- 
tern he had never set eyes on before, measuring 
some giant ferns, and watching the antics of a 
family of squirrels. These had their home in an 
old hollow tree close by, and seemed filled with 
mild curiosity concerning the intruders on two 
legs that had taken up quarters so boldly adjoin- 
ing the cove. 

Herb and George were busily engaged with 
the balky engine, trying to find out just what 
ailed the thing, so that it could be remedied 
once and for all. In the end they felt positive that 
the blame could be located and effectually 
cured. At least it was to be hoped so; otherwise 
the Tramp would have to tow the larger boat 
back to the Soo, where the trouble could be 
abated at the hands of a machinist. 

Josh, according to his custom, was pottering 
around the camp, making a better fireplace out 
of stones, at which he could carry out his part 
of the business with more comfort and dispatch. 
If they had been going to remain any length of 
time here. Josh would have constructed a 
^^cooker^’ worth looking at; for he was an artist 
in this particular line. 

Nick was apparently quite content to lie 
around, ^ ^getting up an appetite for the next 
meal/^ as Josh sarcastically remarked. 


GREAT INLAND SEA 


133 


^^Just as if that were at all necessary/^ was 
what the fat boy hurled back at him; and the ar- 
gument was so clinching that Josh subsided on 
the spot; for no one had ever seen the time when 
Buster^s appetite needed to be coaxed. 

Nick’s eyes finally alighted on the repeating 
gun which Jack had leaned against a tree at a 
point where it would be out of harm’s way. 
Now, Nick himself had seldom fired a gun, 
though ambitious to become a sportsman; be- 
cause, as he wisely observed, '^if I happened to 
be left in the woods some time, think I want to 
starve to death, with a gun in my hands, and 
plenty of fat game all around me? Not much!” 

And in that spirit he had picked up the Marlin; 
bringing it to his shoulder in a clumsy way, time 
after time, in order to get accustomed to the 
movement. 

^^Keep the muzzle turned the other way, Bus- 
ter!” commanded Josh, noticing that he was 
working the pump action of the six-shot weapon, 
as if he liked to see the ejector send the shell 
flying out at one side. 

Guess I know enough for that Josh,” grum- 
bled Nick, but at the same time moving still 
farther around, so that the cook might lose his 
fears; for when a meal was being prepared the 
fat boy always handled Josh with gloves, as 
he frankly admitted. 


134 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


It was just as he was sitting thus that a sudden 
scream rang through the neighboring woods, 
sounding so shrill and angry that every one 
started as though a bolt of lightning had fallen 
from the clear blue vault overhead right into 
their midst, and exploded there! 


OUT OF DISGRACE 


135 


CHAPTER XIV 

NICK WIPES OUT HIS DISGRACE 

Everybody in the camp jumped up. 

All eyes were turned toward the point from 
which this racket sprang* and it was a strange 
sight that immediately met their astonished 
eyes. Jimmie was jumping about as though he 
had accidentally stepped into a bee’s nest, and 
was now engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with 
the entire swarm. 

Nick happened to be in a position where he 
could see better than any of his companions. 
And he immediately discovered that the troubles 
of the Irish lad were not at all imaginary. 

Something was leaping back and forth, now 
threatening to land on the shoulders of Jimmie, 
and then springing to the low limb of a tree, or it 
might be the ground. 

Nick had never before set eyes on such a 
strange creature, yet he realized that it was a wild 
animal. His late unpleasant experience was of 
course still fresh in his mind; and his first suspicion 
may have been that this was another specimen 
of a Canadian pussy cat. 


136 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Whatever it was, Jimmie seemed to be having 
the time of his hfe fighting. True to his inherit- 
ed instincts, the Irish lad had snatched up some 
sort of stick, to serve him as a shillalah. It was 
a stout bit of wood too, and he wielded it in a 
manner that proved him to be a ^^broth of a boy/^ 
Several times it landed with a resounding whack 
upon the flying body of his antagonist, and at 
each connection the unknown beast was hurled 
heavily backward. 

But evidently the furious animal was grim and 
determined. Instead of being cowed by these 
temporary setbacks it only resumed the attack 
with added zeal; so that Jimmie had often to 
throw up his left arm in addition, to fend off his 
foe. 

Now, Nick chanced to remember that at the 
very moment he was holding a gun in his hands. 
With one of his chums in grave peril it seemed to 
devolve upon him to engineer a rescue party. 

^^Come on, boys! Jimmie needs help!” he 
shouted, starting to run forward as well as his 
bulk admitted. 

^^Careful of that gun, Buster!” called Herb. 

^^Yes, donT shoot Jimmie instead!” added 
Josh. 

^^Hold your fire tiU you can get ^em separated!” 
supplemented George; who being a little farther 
away at the time, managed to bring up the rear. 


OUT OF DISGRACE 


137 


In this way then the quartette started to the 
assistance of Jimmie, who was still whanging 
away with might and main. What with the 
loud shouts of the aroused Irish lad, the whoops 
of the runners, and the angry snarling of the 
enraged beast, one would think a menagerie 
must have broken loose in the neighborhood. 

Just then George happened to get a good look 
at the beast as it jumped up on the limb, and 
whirling, crouched to make another leap. 

^Tt^s a wildcat!’’ he shouted as loud as he 
could. ^^Be careful, Nick! Don’t you try to 
grab it now, on your life!” 

Nick heard, but was too busy to think of re- 
plying. The cat had sprung again at the pug- 
nacious Irish boy, to be met with another smart 
thump that landed with a loud thud, and sent 
the beast sprawling to the ground. 

^^Ye would, hey?” howled Jimmie in derision, 
though the blood was streaked upon his face, 
where the sharp claws of the beast had scratched 
him. 'Thry for it again, plaze! And be the 
powers, ye’ll foind Jimmie Brannagan at home 
whin ye knock at the dure. Come on, ye oma- 
dhaun! I’ll soon knock all the breath out of the 
body of ye! Wow!” 

The Canadian cat was a fighter. It looked it 
every inch, now that the defiant defense of the 
intruder had aroused its fury. Once more it 


138 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


sprang to the limb of the tree, as though recog- 
nizing that here it had a better chance to leap 
than from the ground. 

^^Now ! Buster ! But be careful ! Keep back 
Jimmie!^’ shouted George. 

The others held their very breath, for they saw 
that Nick had the Marlin repeater up at his 
bulky shoulder. Perhaps every one of them was 
mentally hoping that he would not shut his eyes 
while pulling the trigger; for a little swerve might 
bring Jimmie within range, and the result be 
disastrous at that short distance. 

Bang! 

Instantly a series of whoops broke forch, and 
every fellow started forward once more, as 
though meaning to be in at the death. George 
and Herb and Josh had each managed to possess 
himself of some sort of improvised weapon. The 
first had in his hand a hatchet which he had been 
using at the time; Josh was waving his favorite 
big spoon, with which he was wont to beat the 
summons to meals on a pan; and the skipper of 
the Comfort had picked up a billet of wood while 
passing the fire, which he now flourished eagerly 
above his head. 

Nick himseK stood there, struggling with the 
pump-gun. As usual with novices he could not 
work the mechanism; for in his excitement he 
was trying to fire without having ejected the 


OUT OF DISGRACE 


139 


used shell; and no self-respecting modem arm 
will stand for that sort of treatment. 

Fortunately all around, no second shot was 
needed. The animal was kicking its last upon 
the ground, and emitting agonizing screams of 
anger and pain. Whether by accident or real 
accuracy of aim, Nick had apparently managed 
to send the contents of the shell where it counted. 

Already Jimmie was indulging in what seemed 
to be a war dance, waving his stick, and singing. 
George was compelled to laugh just to see his 
antics, streaked as his freckled face was with 
smootches of his own gore. 

^^Ye done it, Buster, sure ye knocked the silly 
gossoon clane over!” he called. ’Tis a broth 
of a boy ye arre, and afther me own heart. Look 
at the baste, would ye? If he hasnT got tassels 
on his ears!” 

^That^s a fact!” declared George, now arriving 
to see the last kick of the animal on the ground, 
and note the unquenchable fury shown to the 
very end. ^^Why, I tell you what it is fellows. 
A Canadian lynx, that^s what!” 

^Tt does look different from my cat — er, that 
other animal,” admitted Nick, as he cautiously 
advanced, evidently ready to beat a hasty retreat 
should he discover any need. 

“IVe heard of the missing links,” spoke up 
Josh; “but we never lost any; so this critter 
couldnT belong to us.” 


140 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


good shot, Buster, old man!'^ declared 
George, bending down to see where the charge 
had struck the beast while crouching on the 
limb, and preparing for still another leap at 
Jimmie. 

Nick swelled up with importance. Apparent- 
ly this was one of the few occasions when he 
could assume an attitude, and receive congratu- 
lations. Usually it was just the other way; and 
like a wise fellow he believed in making hay while 
the sun shone. 

'^Oh! pretty fair, considering how quick I had 
to shoot he remarked, carelessly, as much as to 
say that, given a little more time, and he could 
have done better. 

Jack now came running up, having of course 
heard all the row, and being consumed with curi- 
osity to know its meaning. 

‘^What is it?^’ he called, as he ran. ‘^Another 
Canada pussy cat?” 

^That^s just what it is,” replied George 
quickly. 

^^And is Buster at his old tricks again?” con- 
tinued the other; at which Nick was compelled 
to grin amiably, knowing his hour of triumph 
was at hand. 

^^Buster was in the mix-up, all right,” George 
went on; ^'only this time he happened to be at 
the other end of the gun. Buster has covered 


OUT OF DISGRACE 


141 


himself with immortal glory. We all must 
knuckle down to him after this as the great 
Nimrod; for he has just slain the Jabberwock. 
Looky here, Jack; what d^e call that?^’ 

'^Well, I declare, a big Canada lynx!^’ cried 
the newcomer, recognizing the dead beast as 
soon as he saw its queer tasseled ears, and its 
ferocious whiskers. 

“It tackled Jimmie here, and they were having 
a hot old argument of it, Jimmie pounding with 
his club, and the cat using its claws.” Herb said, 
turning to the Irish boy, to see how badly he was 
wounded. 

Jack became sympathetic at once, and anxious 
in the bargain. 

“Only a few little scratches you say, Jimmie,” 
he remarked. “That^s true, they don^t seem 
serious; but it^s always dangerous to be marked 
with the claws of animals that live on* carrion, 
like lions, grizzlies or wildcats. And I^m glad 
to say IVe got something along for just such a 
case. Come on back to camp with me.” 

Jimmie, still protesting, did so; while the 
others, dragging the lynx, made Buster head the 
procession, while they sang: “Lo! the Conquer- 
ing Hero Comes; Sound the Trumpets, Beat the 
Drums!” greatly to the delight of the fat boy. 

When Jack applied the purple colored tincture 
from a small bottle to the wounds on Jimmie's 


142 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


face and hands, the Irish boy gave a whoop of 
pain. 

^^Sure, the rimedy is worse nor the disease!’’ 
he complained. 

^That’s all right,” said Jack; ^^just stand the 
pain for a little. It’s an insurance against blood 
poisoning. Many a hunter has lost his life from 
little cuts no worse than yours, when they were 
caused by the claws of a wild beast. My father 
would not let me come out unless I carried this.” 

^^What is it, Jack?” asked Herb, curiously, 
strong tincture of permanganate of potash,” 
was the reply. “Just remember that, will you; 
and it’s got to be powerful enough to hurt like 
fun; eh, Jimmie?” 

“Indade it did, that,” was the immediate re- 
sponse; while the Irish boy screwed up his good 
humored face in a knot. 

Jack went back to his fishing, for he had al- 
ready managed to take one pretty good specimen 
of the Lake Superior speckled trout that would 
have weighed nearly four pounds; and was eager 
for more. 

All the while he sat there, employing every de- 
vice he knew of to tempt the finny denizens of 
the depths to bite, he kept one eye to windward. 
That low bank of clouds interested him; for it 
seemed to presage a storm. 

Since everything possible had been attended 


OUT OF DISGRACE 


143 


to in order to ward off any evil effects of a gale, 
Jack did not stop fishing until he had succeeded 
in catching a fine mess, that would please the 
heart of Buster. 

Josh was preparing the fish as fast as they were 
caught. Indeed, he dispatched Nick several 
times to see if there were any more forthcoming; 
when the sportsman would toss ashore his latest 
catch, and the cook^s assistant hurry back with 
the prize, his hungry- eyes fairly glistening with 
anticipation. 

Of course it was a royally good supper that 
followed. Josh cooked the trout in the same 
capable manner he had served the lake white 
fish; and every fellow declared they had never 
tasted anything more delicious. 

Still, there w^as plenty for all, and to spare. 
Even Nick had to shut his eyes with a deep sigh, 
because he had reached the extreme limit of his 
capacity; and a pan of trout remained untouched. 

The growling of the thunder now became more 
pronounced. Across the heavens the zigzag 
lightning shot, in a way that was as terrible as it 
was fascinating. Supper done, the boys clus- 
tered near the fire, talking, and watching the 
coming of the gale. Again and again had Jack 
and George gone around, to see that every tent 
peg was clinched in the ground. 

^TheyTe going to hold, unless the wind tears 


144 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


the blessed things to flinders!” Jack had announc- 
ed ; and at the same time he had seen to it that 
the boats were protected by the friendly point 
of land from the giant waves that would soon be 
sweeping in from the sea beyond. 

Already were they rising in majestic grandeur 
that was awe inspiring. The storm was. about 
to swoop down upon the shore line, and hurl the 
rising sea against the mighty rocky barrier, as it 
had done for countless ages past without success. 

“Oh! ain't I just glad I'm not out there!” ex- 
claimed Nick, as he shudderingly surveyed the 
darkening picture of warring elements. 

“But look there, fellows; what d'ye call that?” 
cried Herb, as he pointed a quivering finger at 
some object that had suddenly come in sight 
from the east. 

It was a little motor boat, wallowing in the 
rising sea, and doomed to certain destruction 
unless able to make shelter immediately. And 
with the waves dashing wildly against the rocks, 
those aboard would never see the small opening 
through which the motor boat boys had come to 
their present snug harbor! 

“It's the FlashV^ shouted Jack; “and unless 
we manage to show them the way in, it's good-bye 
to Clarence and Bully Joe! We must do it, fel- 
lows. Come on!” 


HELPING AN ENEMY 


145 


CHAPTER XV 

HELPING AN ENEMY 

Jack kept his wits about him. 

He had snatched up something as he ran to the 
very point where he might best be seen through 
the ^ying spray. It was the conch shell which, 
with its apex sawed off, made a horn or trumpet 
that could be heard a mile away, under even the 
most discouraging conditions. 

Reaching the point for which he had been aim- 
ing Jack immediately started sending a hoarse 
blast out over that tumultuous sea. The others 
waved their hats, and made suggestive motions 
toward the small inlet, to show that a boat could 
enter the cove where the stream of water emptied 
into the Big Lake. 

^They see us!” shrilled Nick, dancing up and 
down in his excitement; for in this moment all 
past animosity was forgotten, because human 
lives seemed in jeopardy — the lives of those who 
had gone to school, and played baseball with 
them, in the days that were past. 

^^Yes, they’re waving their hands!” declared 
Herb. 


146 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


'^And now they put about!” George added. 
' 'Careful there, Clarence! You nearly keeled 
over then on your beam ends. That was a nar- 
row squeak! I^d hate to have the poor old 
Flash meet such a fate, not to speak of her crew.” 

'Tt^s all right now, fellows!” cried Jack. 
"TheyTe heading for the inlet. Run over, and 
be ready to give any help needed. In times like 
this let^s forget that Clarence and Joe have al- 
ways been up against us. WeTe all Americans 
now; and we must stick together!” 

"Bully talk!” said Josh, hastening after George 
and Jack, leaving Nick to amble along in the 
rear. 

Clarence knew how to handle his boat with 
considerable skill; and once he drew close in, he 
was able to see how the ground lay. Those on 
shore also directed him as best they could; and 
the net result was that the Flash finally shot 
around the point, arriving in the little sheltered 
bay that a kind nature seemed to have provided 
for just such emergencies. 

As Jack had more than once said, could they 
but look back hundreds of years, no doubt they 
would find that it had sheltered fleets of Indian 
canoes many a time, when the storm king rode 
the waves of the Great Lake. 

When the Flash had been moored safely, her 
crew came ashore. Joe Brinker was looking a 


HELPING AN ENEMY 


147 


bit sullen, as though he did not much fancy the 
idea of accepting aid from these fellows, whom 
he had always looked upon as enemies. But 
Clarence walked straight up to Jack, holding out 
his hand. 

say it^s mighty decent of you, Stormways, 
to throw us a line this way,” he declared, with 
considerable feeling. admit I was badly 
rattled, and thought we were in for a wreck. 
Neither of us glimpsed this opening here, and 
we^d sure have swept by, if you hadn^t signalled. 
I^m sorry now I ever — ” 

^^Let by-gones be forgotten while we^re here, 
Clarence,” spoke up Jack. ^^See, the storm is 
whooping things up out there now, and it^s just 
as weU you're not on the lake.” 

Clarence did look, and shuddered at what he 
saw; for it was not a pleasant spectacle, with the 
lightning flashes, and the heaving billows, seen 
through the flying spray that even reached them 
by the tents. 

'^Get busy, fellows!” George called. ^'Carry 
everything inside. Yes, take that pan of fish, 
and the coffee, Nick. I guess our callers are 
hungry, and will be glad of a bite. Quick now, 
for here she comes with a rush!” 

Hardly had they found shelter, and the flaps 
of the tents been secured, when down the rain 
pelted, to the accompaniment of the most tre- 


148 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


mendous thunder crashes any of them had ever 
heard; while the fierce wind tried its best to tear 
the canvas shelters from over their heads. 

But the work had been well done, and the 
tents stood, though wobbling more or less under 
the fierce onset of the wind. 

Clarence and Joe had been taken in with Jack 
and George, while the other four occupied the 
second tent. Seated on the ground, the two 
newcomers proceeded to break their fast, and 
drink what remained of the coffee. 

^^Guess you wonder what kept us back so 
long?^^ remarked Clarence, after they had finish- 
ed the meal, and while a little lull came in the 
tempest without. 

Jack and George looked at each other and 
smiled. 

“We might give a good think,” remarked the 
latter; “seeing that I pushed the nose of my 
Wireless boat so hard into Mud Lake that it took 
an hour and more for the other two to pull me 
off.” 

“Huh! that^s where you were lucky, then, 
George,” continued the other. “We didn^t 
have any chums to do the pulling act; and so we 
just had to flounder there for hours and hours. 
I reckon we must have spent the best part of 
two days sticking in the mud. Happened that 
nothing came along but some big steamers; and 


HELPING AN ENEMY 


149 


they wouldn^t stop to help a poor little motor 
boat off.” 

^Well, how did you get away finally?” asked 
Jack, interested. 

^Worked our way out of it by ourselves; and 
we^re proud to tell it,” Clarence proceeded. 

managed to climb up into a tree that hung 
over the boat, and threw down branches until 
we made a mattress that would bear our weight. 
Then we got out a block and tackle we carried, 
and fixed it in a way to get a strong pull. I kept 
the engine working for all she would go, while 
Joe bent to the tackle; and inch by inch we finally 
yanked the Flash out of her mud berth.” 

^^Good for you!” remarked George, with real 
emphasis. ^ ^Looking back, there^s always some 
satisfaction in remembering how you managed 
to get out of a bad hole by means of your own 
wits.” 

^^All the same, we wished many times we had 
some chums handy, who would give us a pull,” 
said Joe, whom the meal and hot coffee had put 
in a better humor. 

All night long the storm raged on the lake. 
Any vessel that was so unlucky as to be caught 
out in it was to be pitied, or at least those aboard 
were. Morning saw its abatement; but the seas 
were beating wildly against the rock bound 
north shore and it was sheer folly for any one 


150 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


to dream of putting out while such a condi- 
tion of affairs lasted. 

So they concluded to make a day of it. Clar- 
ence for the first time in his life began to realize 
what fine fellows these motor boat chums really 
were; and how they stood ready to forget all the 
trouble that he and his crony had been only to 
willing to shower upon them in the past. 

They talked of dozens of things, some of which 
were connected with their life in school at home, 
and others that bore upon the recent series of 
happenings on the St. Lawrence river. 

^^Looks like we wouldnT have any more bother 
with Clarence after this,’’ said Josh to Herb, as 
they watched Jack and the other two doing some- 
thing at the camp fire that afternoon, just as 
though the best of friends. 

“I hope we won’t,” replied the other; ^^but you 
never can be sure of Clarence. He’s tricky; and 
besides, impulsive. Just now he means to drop 
all enmity toward us; because we’ve fed him, 
and treated him white. But wait till something 
rubs him the other way. That’s the time to see 
if the thing is more than skin deep.” 

During the midst of their conversation George 
purposely mentioned the name of Jonathan 
Fosdick. 

^What; do you know the old apple grower, 
too?” demanded Clarence, looking surprised. 


HELPING AN ENEMY 


151 


Of course Jack told how they had found the 
old man sick in his stable ; and helped him to his 
house. 

^^And he told us all about his runaway boy, 
Andy, too; and how word came he was working 
in a fishing camp up along this shore,^^ George 
went on. 

^^Yes, we promised that if we ran across the 
fellow we^d tell him he was wanted at home the 
worst kind,’^ Clarence remarked. 

^^And he was that thankful he just loaded us 
down with stuff — eggs, butter, and such. 
Couldn^t do enough for us,” Joe added, grinning 
at the recollection. 

^ ^History repeated itself then, for we promised 
the same thing,” laughed Jack. 

^^And he just wouldn’t take a cent in payment 
for the things we got,” remarked George. ^^But 
see here, Clarence, it looks like we’re in for an- 
other race between the Flash and the WirelesSy 
to see which can get to the mouth of the Agawa 
first; for I hear there’s a big fish camp there, run 
by a man at the Soo, where they take tons and 
tons of white fish, the trout not being for sale.” 

guess I get the notion that’s struck you, 
George; and let me say right here, I still believe 
the Flash to be the better boat,” Clarence went 
on, stubbornly. 

^^Shall W'e try it out then, tomorrow, when we 


152 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


leave here; in a friendly way of course, I mean?^^ 
George asked, eagerly. 

^Take him up, Clarry!’’ said Joe. 

^^All right then, we^ll call it a go,^^ declared 
the other. ^^Only I wish we had something 
worth making a run for, a prize of some sort.^^ 

^Tt will give me some pleasure to be the one 
to tell Andy Fosdick that he^s wanted bad at 
home/^ George observed. 

^^Then well call it a go; and this time you^d 
better look out for yourself, because the Flash 
has had a knot an hour added to her speed since 
we raced last. And besides, I didnl have any 
heart in that trial of speed, you know. That 
smuggler was forcing me to run my boat, to get 
him out of a pickle; and for me to win only meant 
that my boat would be lost to me. I was really 
glad to play him a trick in the end, and throw 
the race.’’ 

Jack and George may have had their own 
opinions with regard to the truth of the matter; 
but they knew enough to keep their tongues 
still. While the dove of peace hovered over the 
camp, it would be folly to stir these fellows up 
again. 

Overhead the sun shone in a clear sky. Only 
for those waves the motor boat club could have 
easily continued on their cruise. But with the 
waning of the afternoon the seas began to sensi- 
bly dechne. 


HELPING AN ENEMY 


153 


prophesy a good day tomorrow for our race, 
George,” Clarence remarked, as, in company 
with the others he sat by the fire, enjoying a 
feast that Josh and his assistants, Nick and 
Jimmie, had prepared for the crowd. 

Jack and George were both of the same opinion 
since all the well known signs seemed to point 
that way. They sat up until a reasonable hour, 
chatting and singing; and Clarence realized as 
never before what a fine thing he and Joe were 
missing in never having found a chance to join 
this merry group before. 

The night was a peaceful one. At early dawn 
the camp was astir, for much had to be done ere 
they might put out on the calm lake. 

^Xooks like a big mirror; didnT I tell you that 
wind had blown itself out?” remarked Clarence, 
upon casting his first glance beyond the point. 

At eight they were all ready to leave the snug 
harbor that had opened so opportunely for the 
storm threatened crew of the Flash. 

Clarence had charts also, and doubtless studied 
them eagerly when he had an opportunity to go 
aboard his boat again. For although this was 
only a friendly race, he always threw himself 
into whatever he did with a vim, heart and soul, 
that made defeat all the more bitter, should it 
come. 

Of course Jack, deep down in his heart, knew 


154 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


full well that this was only a temporary truce in 
the warfare that had always existed between 
himself and Clarence. Once away from their 
society the other would soon drift back to his 
old way of thinking and acting. But Jack de- 
cided that not because of any unfriendly act on 
the part of himseh or chums should these two 
find cause for again digging up the buried hatchet. 

Leaving the cove, the four boats were soon 
moving along the glassy surface of the calm lake, 
headed almost due west. Somewhere, many 
miles away, lay the first goal, the mouth of the 
Agawa, which was to mark the expiration of the 
race. 

‘^Ready, both of you?’’ demanded Jack, as 
the two rival speed boats ranged alongside the 
Tramp, one on either quarter. 

^'Ready here!” answered Clarence, briskly. 

^^Same here. Jack!” called George, hovering 
over his engine, which was running at about its 
next to slowest notch. 

'Then go!” shouted the starter; and instantly 
both craft shot forward like arrows, while the 
rattle of their exhausts sounded as if a battle 
were in progress. 


“WIRELESS DAY»» 


155 


CHAPTER XVI 
“wireless day” 

“Hurrah!” shouted Josh, wildly excited, and 
glad for once to be on the narrow speed boat. 

“May the best one win!” called Jack, as he 
watched the rivals drawing ahead of the two 
slower boats. 

“That means us!” laughed Bully Joe. 

“Just wait and see!” answered Josh; between 
whom and Joe there had always been more or 
less bad blood. 

Herb had given his staunch engine all it could 
stand; and as the Tramp stood by him, they were 
soon left far in the lurch. 

“Talk to me about speed,” observed Herb, as 
Jack turned his face that way, “strikes me the 
Wireless has her work cut out for today, to beat 
Clarence.” 

“You heard what he said about the improve- 
ment made when at the machinist's. It was a 
knot an hour increase, I believe,” Jack remarked, 
casting a look down at the throbbing motor of the 
Tramp. 

“That^s right,” Herb spoke up. “But you 


156 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


know we did some tinkering to George^s engine, 
and he has always said that it ran better after- 
wards. Anyhow, it looks like a pretty race.” 

think so with you. Herb,” Jack admitted. 
'^Judging from here, they^re running neck and 
neck now.” 

“Yes,” continued the other, “but don^t forget 
that tricky Clarence is always up to something. 
Two to one he’s got a bit more speed held in 
reserve.” 

“Well, George knows him like a book,” laugh- 
ed Jack. “And make up your mind he’ll keep 
something held back himself. Don’t you re- 
member he did before? Possibly Clarence may 
be the one to run up against a surprise after a 
while.” 

As the racers drew farther and farther away, 
those in the other boats began to think of other 
things. None of them had half the interest in 
the outcome of the rivalry as did George. With 
him there were many old accounts to square; and 
he meant to make a good job of it, if he had his 
way about the matter. 

For some miles the two speedy motor boats 
kept along, neither appearing to gain half a 
length on the other. If one seemed to be going 
ahead, the skipper immediately busied himself 
stopping the advantage. It was as if both were 
holding themselves in for the home stretch. 


“WIRELESS DAY’’ 


157 


Josh was on needles and pins all this while. 
He paid little attention to what lay in the rear. 
Part of his time was taken up in scanning the 
watery waste ahead, through the powerful ma- 
rine glasses. And when not thus employed he 
sat there, quivering with suspense, wondering 
whether there would come a sudden stoppage of 
the engine, which might spring from one of its 
eccentric tantrums. 

But, strange to say, the motor seemed to be 
doing its best today, as if bent on meriting all the 
good things its builders had said in their cata- 
logue. 

see it!’’ suddenly hoarsely whispered Josh, 
in a mysterious way, as though he did not wish 
those in the other craft to overhear him. 

“You mean the little bay at the mouth of the 
river?” queried George, setting his teeth hard 
together; for he knew that the crisis so long 
awaited was at hand. 

“Sure, look for yourself, George,” handing him 
the glasses. 

“Yes, I believe you’re right,” returned the 
skipper of the Wireless, as he once more turned 
his attention to his engine. “Now, get in the 
middle of the boat. Josh, and don’t move any 
more than you can help.” 

“You’re going to open up, then?” asked the 
tall, ungainly lad, feverishly. 


158 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^‘1 am. Are you ready?’^ George went on. 

'^My hair is parted exactly in the middle, I 
believe,” chuckled Josh. ^^You know Buster 
used to say that was one thing you made him do 
when he was on board here. Let her go, George! 
Get the jump on him; it may count in the end!” 

A shout from Bully Joe was the first knowledge 
Clarence had that his rival had taken the bit 
in his teeth, and shot ahead. Instantly the speed 
of the Flash increased; and the two powerful 
engines began to throb like little giants; while 
the sound of the exhausts, from which the mufflers 
had been entirely removed, was like the tattoo 
of a couple of snare drums calling the long roll. 

Josh steadied himself as best he could; though 
when the boat was rushing through the water at 
this frightful speed it did not seem so cranky as 
when at rest. 

^^George, we^re gaining on him!” he said, in a 
husky voice that trembled with the excitement 
under which Josh labored. 

see we are; and still I could get a bit more 
out of old Wireless if hard pushed. Don^t worry. 
Josh; we’re bound to show Clarence up for a 
bluffer this time, sure.” 

“If only something don’t happen!” gasped the 
anxious Josh, with an intake of breath that was 
like a big sigh. 

“Make your mind easy on that score,” said 


“WIRELESS DAY” 


159 


George, positively. “Nothing is going to break 
down. She^s running as smooth as silk, and 
never missing a stroke. Oh! ain^t this great, 
though? IVe looked forward to this ever so 
long. Wouldn^t I like to be close enough right 
now to see the look on Clarence^s face.^’ 

“It’s as long as a foot rule, I warrant you!” 
chuckled Josh. “Don’t I know them two fel- 
lows though? They take a beat hard. Ten 
to one that if you are ahead when we come to the 
bay, they’ll go on past, and never enter at all.” 

“Well, now, that wouldn’t surprise me one 
little bit,” remarked George. 

Slowly but surely was the Flash falling behind, 
or rather the other boat forging ahead. Doubt- 
less Clarence must be trying every device known 
to ambitious racing skippers in order to just 
coax a little more speed from his engine; but it 
was now keyed up to top-notch, and utterly in- 
capable of doing a particle better. 

Already Clarence must know that he was 
badly beaten, unless fortune stepped in to bring 
about an accident to the Wireless. 

“That’s what he’s playing for now,” said 
George, when his companion suggested this very 
thing. “But I reckon Clarence will find himself 
barking up the wrong tree. This race has just 
got to be mine. You hear me warble. Josh?” 

It was not often George spouted slang; but the 


160 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


excitement had seized upon him to such an extent 
now, that he hardly did know what he was say- 
ing. 

Minutes crept along. 

Now the Flash was a stone^s throw in the rear, 
and losing all the while. 

“Careful about the turn, George,^^ cautioned 
Josh, as they came near where the bay opened 
up. “We don’t want to lose this thing at the 
last stretch. Now you’re safe to turn in. Hur- 
rah! hurrah! hurrah! siss! boom! crash! we win!” 

The Wireless safely made the turn, and thus 
Josh announced her victory. 

“What did I tell you,” Josh went on. “Look 
at ’em, George! They’re spinning on right past, 
and don’t mean to come in at all. Clarence 
won’t even look this way, but keeps staring 
ahead. Talk to me about taking a beat to heart, 
there never was a fellow as bad as Macklin, in 
baseball, hockey or any sport. Well, good-bye 
to you, fellows! Come again when you can’t 
stay so long. It’s Wireless day, you know!” 

There was no answer to the shout with which 
Josh wound up his remarks. He saw Bully Joe 
wave his hand in a derisive way, and then the 
Flash passed by at full speed, as though the race 
were still on. 

There was a big camp on the shore, and several 
boats drawn up on the beach. Many signs told 


“WIRELESS DAY” 


161 


that this was one of the favorite places along the 
north shore for the white fish men to gather. 
Doubtless innumerable barrels of this delicate 
inhabitant of the Great Lakes were shipped from 
this coast during each season; with the supply 
still undiminished. - 

It had been agreed upon that George was not 
to go ashore imtil the rest of the little motor boat 
fleet arrived. This was not for half an hour or 
so, since the Comfort was not capable of doing 
better than ten miles an hour, and the more 
speedy Tramp had to accommodate her pace to 
that of the steady boat. 

Nick and the rest gave the victor a good cheer 
as they turned the point, and entered the bay at 
the mouth of the famous trout river. 

Then the three craft made for the beach, off which 
they anchored, to go ashore in the smaller boats. 

There were some shanties and tents in sight, 
with a number of rough looking men; who how- 
ever seemed glad to welcome the boys. The 
smell of fish was everywhere, as was natural. 

“Do you happen to have a young fellow here 
in this camp by the name of Andy Fosdick?” 
Jack asked a man who seemed to be the boss. 

“Yes, but just now he^s out at work. There^s 
a boat coming in and p^raps Andy may be one 
of the crew,” the other replied. 

They waited until the boat landed, and those 


162 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


who were in it jumped out. Jack could use his 
judgment, and he immediately selected a sturdy 
looking young chap, with a skin the color of an 
Indian^s, as the one they sought. 

^^Come along, fellows,” he said to his chums; 
^'and we^ll find out.” 

He made straight for the young man; who, 
seeing the procession approaching, and all eyes 
glued eagerly on him, stood there looking curious, 
and a bit apprehensive. Jack thought. 

^^Are you Andrew Fosdick?” Jack asked, as 
they reached the spot where the other stood, one 
hand resting on the edge of the boat, from which 
his comrades were already shoveling their catch 
of fish. 

^That^s my name, though I generally answer 
to plain Andy,” replied the fisherman wondering 
doubtless what all this meant, and why these 
boys should want to see him. 

^'BuUy!” exclaimed Nick. ^Tound him the 
first shot! We^re sure in great luck on this 
cruise, fellows!” 

^Tell him what you want with him. Jack,” 
urged Herb, who saw the other was being con- 
sumed with anxiety. 

^^We have come straight from your father, 
Andy,” said Jack, softly. ^^He wants you to 
come home to him.” 

Then they saw a hard look pass over the dark 
face of Andy Fosdick. 


‘‘WIRELESS DAY’’ 


163 


“It ain^t no use, boys,” he said, bitterly. “He 
run me off long ago, and I don^t go back there 
again. I^m gettin^ to forget my name even is 
Fosdick, and that settles it.” 


164 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER XVII 

CAUGHT NAPPING 

Jack was shocked at the words and manner 
of the young fisherman. His chums even half 
turned away in disgust, believing that their 
mission was doomed to failure. But Jack did 
not give up a thing so easily. 

^^Wait,’^ he said, quietly; ‘T donH believe you 
know, Andy. When did you hear from home 
last?^^ 

^‘Never once,’’ gritted the other, morosely, 
showing that his wrongs had eaten into his very 
soul. ^ ^Didn’t want to, neither. Made up my 
mind I cud take care of myself. Done it too, all 
these years. Got money laid up ; and goin’ to be 
married in the fall.” 

“Then you didn’t know your mother was 
dead?” Jack went on. 

“Oh!” exclaimed Andy, starting, and showing 
signs of emotion. “I never heard that Ma was 
gone! Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t see her again. 
She was never so bitter as dad; but only weak 
like.” 

Jack heard him sigh, and knew a start had 
been made. 


CAUGHT NAPPING 


165 


^^Listen, Andy/^ he went on; ^^your father is 
subject to strokes. One of them will carry him 
off. It may be today, or tomorrow, but not a 
great while can he stay here. He is bitterly 
sorry for what he did. He wants to tell you so, 
to ask you to forgive him before he too dies.’^ 

Andy’s head fell on his broad chest, and Jack 
believed he saw his frame quiver with some sort 
of gathering emotion. 

^^He has made his will, and left you everything, 
Andy,” he continued. ^Tf you are to be mar- 
ried, that will be your home. He begged us to 
find you, to tell you all this; and that if you would 
only come back to forgive him, he would die 
happy. Won’t you do that, Andy? Once he 
goes, the chance can never come to you again; 
and you’re bound to feel mighty sorry as the 
years go by.” 

Nick nudged George, and whispered. 

^^Did you ever hear the beat of that, George? 
Ain’t our Jack the born lawyer though? He 
ought to be in your dad’s office, studying for the 
bar, that’s what.” 

^^Hold your horses, Buster!” answered the one 
addressed, eagerly waiting to see what effect 
Jack’s logic might have upon Andy. 

The struggle however was short. Presently 
the young fisherman glanced up; and as soon as 
he could see the look on his bronzed face Jack 


166 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


knew his case was won. 

^T'll go back to the old man/^ he said, firmly, 
guess ’taint right he shud die and not have 
a chance to say what’s on his mind. And thank 
ye for tollin’ me.” 

^^But when will you go?” Jack continued. 
^There is need of haste, because nobody can say 
just how long he may live.” 

^^A boat ’ll be along this arternoon, and we ship 
some barrels on her. Guess the boss’ll let me 
off when he larns the reason,” Andy replied. 

'Tf you like. I’ll tell him the whole story?” 
Jack suggested. 

And this he did a little later. He found the 
boss full of sympathy, rough man as he seemed 
to be. And Andy readily received permission 
to break the contract he had made for the 
season. 

^‘Well, what’s doing now?” queried Herb, as 
the bunch wandered around, observing the va- 
rious interesting phases of the fishermen’s bus- 
iness; for a boat was loading with barrels full 
of the catch, which were going direct to the Soo, 
from where they would be carried by express to 
Chicago, or other distributing points. 

^Too late to go on today,” said Jack. ^ ^Be- 
sides, I want to have a try with some of the big 
speckled trout that they tell me lie around here. 
They take plenty, but have to throw them back, 


CAUGHT NAPPING 


167 


or eat them, as the law does not allow any sale 
of trout. Think of a seven pounder on my rod.’^ 

“Well, get at it then. Jack,” laughed George. 
“Youll never be happy till you do hook a mom 
ster. WeT promise to help you eat him, all 
right; eh, fellows?” 

“All he can bring in, and then some,” declared 
Nick; making his mouth move in a suggestive 
way that caused his mates to laugh. 

“Be careful, Buster,” warned Herb. “You 
know you said you meant to cut down on your 
grub. Instead of losing, youTe gaining weight 
every day. If you keep on like that, Rosie 
wonT know you when we get back home.” 

But Nick only grinned as he replied calmly: 
“Well, Rosie ainT the whole thing. There 
are others, perhaps.” 

“Listen to the traitor, would you?” exclaimed 
Josh. WonT I tell on him, though, when we get 
back? I bet he's thinking right now of that 
cute little elephant, Sallie Bliss!” 

“All right,” admitted N ick, brazenly. “Who's 
got a better right, tell me? And even you admit 
that she is cute. Just mind your own business. 
Josh Purdue. The fact is, you're just green with 
envy because of my noble figure. Pity you 
couldn't have a httle of my fat on your bones!” 

“Noble figure!” exclaimed Josh, pretending 
to be near a fainting spell. “Shades of my an- 


1G8 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


cestors, excuse me! I may be envious, but I ain^t 
conceited, like some people, and that^s the 
truth.” 

Jack left them in this sort of warm argument; 
but he knew that no matter what was said, Nick 
and Josh would not openly quarrel. 

He asked numerous questions as to the most 
likely spots for the big trout; and having secured 
some bait, started into business. While thus 
employed he saw the steamer come along, and 
the boat loaded with barrels go out to meet her, 
as she stopped her engines. 

'There’s Andy stepping aboard, carrying his 
grip/’ Jack said to himself. "And I’m glad he 
proved so sensible. The old man will be wild 
to have him again. Yes, it was a lucky day for 
him in more ways than one when we started for 
his house to get a supply of butter, eggs and 
milk. Nick thought the luck was all on our 
side; but he can never see far beyond meal 
time.” 

As the afternoon grew on, and the steamer be- 
came hazy in the distance. Jack began to have 
some bites. And then came the thrilling mo- 
ment when he found himseK engaged with one of 
those famous monster speckled beauties for 
which this region is noted, and specimens of 
which he had seen in the breeding ponds of the 
Soo government fish hatchery. 


CAUGHT NAPPING 


169 


It was a glorious fight, never to be forgotten; 
and at last Jack had his prize in his hands. Nor 
did the luck stop there. The fish were hungry, 
apparently; for in less than five minutes Number 
Two gave him even a harder struggle than the 
other victim; and in this case also Jack won out. 

So they did have trout galore for supper; and 
even Nick was surfeited for once. All of the 
boys declared that they had never tasted any- 
thing finer than these big Lake Superior trout, 
freshly taken from the icy waters of the big 
reservoir, and cooked as only Josh Purdue could 
do it. 

‘'Yum! yum!^^ Nick went on, after being ac- 
tually pressed in vain to have another helping; 
‘T^d like to stay right here for a month. Seems 
to me I^d never get tired of that pink flesh trout. 
DonT ever want to hear mention of a Mississippi 
catfish again after this.” 

“How about Canada kitties?” asked Herb, 
maliciously. 

Nick declined to answer. That was a subject 
on which his comrades knew his mind full well; 
and he did not mean to argue it again. 

Mutely he pointed to the skin of the lynx which 
had fallen to his gun, mutilated a little, to be 
sure, by the charge of shot that had been the 
means of its death; but worth its weight in silver 
to the fat Nimrod; and Herb closed up hke a 
clam. 


170 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


In the morning they prepared to go on again; 
though Herb and Jack had, when by themselves, 
seriously talked, over the subject; and were be- 
ginning to arrive at the conclusion that this 
tremendous fresh water sea was hardly the best 
cruising ground for such small craft as the motor 
boats; and that they would be wise to cut short 
their former intention of reaching Duluth. 

Better keep an eye out for dirty weather, 
boys!^^ the boss of the camp had observed, when 
shaking hands as they said good-bye. 

Nick could see no signs of anything ahead that 
looked like a storm; and he was inchned to be- 
lieve the other must be wrong in his guess. 

“Must be one of them old croakers we hear 
so much about, he remarked to Herb, as they 
went on along the coast of the Big Lake. “Always 
expecting things to happen that don^t come to 
pass. I don^t see any storm, do you?^^ 

“Not a sign,” replied the skipper of the Com- 
fort; who was anxiously keeping tabs on his 
engine, as though he had reason to fear a repe- 
tition of the former trouble. 

But in the end it proved to be George who 
brought the httle expedition to a halt. After 
acting so splendidly in that fierce race with the 
Flashy lo and behold, the motor of the Wireless 
broke down during the' early afternoon. 

They tinkered at it for an hour and more. 


CAUGHT NAPPING 


171 


Jack coming over to take a hand; but apparently 
little progress was made. Jack was worried. 
They were too far away from the fish camp to 
think of towing the disabled boat back; and a 
harbor did not offer within reaching distance be- 
yond. 

The afternoon began to wane, and there 
seemed nothing for it but that the three motor 
boats should anchor just where they were, and 
pass the night on the open water. All would 
be well if the weather remained fair, and no 
strong southerly wind arose during the night. 
Jack did not like to think what might happen in 
case such a thing did come about. 

So as night came on they made things as snug 
as possible, ate supper aboard, and determined 
to keep up their courage, in the belief that noth- 
ing would happen to alarm them. 

But about an hour after midnight Jack, being 
on the watch, was thrilled to hear a sudden and 
entirely unexpected boom of thunder. 

Instantly everybody was awake, and stirring; 
loud voices began to be heard, as the others 
thrust their heads out of the tarpaulin covers 
that served as boat tents when the crews slept 
aboard; and excitement reigned. 

The very thing that Jack had dreaded most of 
all seemed on the verge of coming about; since 
they were caught on the open lake at night, with 
a storm threatening. 


172 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER XVIII 

A NIGHT OF ANXIETY 

“Hey! here^s Nick getting into his cork jacket 
already!” called Herb. 

“All right,” said the one in question, firmly. 
“Think I want to get washed out on that pond 
without something to hold me up? Remember, 
I’m a new beginner when it comes to swimming. 
And then I’ve got more to hold up than the rest 
of you.” 

“Well, help me get this tent down first,” re- 
monstrated Herb. “We don’t want to be caught 
by a storm with these things up, you know.” 

“But it might rain?” Nick protested. 

“Let it. We’ve got oilskins; and perhaps 
there’ll be plenty of time, left to get into the 
same. Take hold there.” 

Herb was right; and the crews of all the little 
motor boats had already started to stow awa^^ 
the big covers. Jack kept things as snug as 
possible aboard the Tramp , in case of a down- 
pour; and that was not at all the thing he feared 
most. 

They were within fifty feet of cruel looking 


A NIGHT OF ANXIETY 


173 


rocks. If the wind broke out from any quarter 
that would send the big billows churning against 
that barrier, the fate of the motor boat fleet 
could be easily guessed. 

In a little while everything had been done that 
seemed possible; after which they could only sit 
there, and await whatever was to be handed out 
to them. 

Nick and Josh were plainly nervous; and even 
Jimmie showed some signs of apprehension, nor 
could they be blamed for this timidity. 

^^What if one of the boats is swept away?” 
suggested Josh; who, being in the narrow-beam 
Wireless understood that he had much less 
chance for safety than those who manned the 
other craft. 

^^No danger of that happening,” Jack replied, 
quickly. ^The only thing we have to fear is 
being smashed up against these ^ rocks. Our 
boats would cave in like puff balls.” 

“That^s what,” Josh went on. “Perhaps fel- 
lows, we ought to go ashore in the dinkies while 
we have the chance. Even if we lost the boats 
we’d save our lives. And I promised my folk 
to home I wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks, 
you know.” 

But George only sniffed at the idea. 

“Rats!” he exclaimed. “There you go just 
as usual, magnifying the danger. Josh. As for 


174 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


me, Vi^ going to stick like glue to this old Wire- 
less. Just see me deserting her because a little 
squall chances to blow up. Get ashore if you 
feel like it. And you too, Buster; only remem- 
ber, if we should be blown miles away, you two 
fellows would be apt to starve to death in this 
lonely region.” 

^That settles it,” said Nick, immediately. 

If there was any chance of his starving, he 
stood ready to accept all sorts of perils rather 
than face that possibility. And doubtless George 
knew all this when he put the case so strenuously. 

Josh too decided that he did not want to go 
ashore. If the others could stand the danger, he 
would too. 

^Tt may not be so bad for us, fellows,” ob- 
served Jack. ^^Because, if you look up, you’ll 
see that the clouds are coming frpm the land 
side. And every bang of thunder up to now has 
been from that direction too. The storm this 
time doesn’t mean to cross thedake, and hit this 
shore. And unless it changes around, we’ll be 
protected from it by these very rocks we feared 
so much!” 

^^Bully! buUy! Good for you. Jack!” cried 
Nick, as if greatly relieved. 'T’m feeling so 
much better I almost believe my lost appetite is 
returning.” : ' • 

'"Well, it’s so, ain’t it?” demanded the other. 


A NIGHT OF ANXIETY 175 


^^Sure it is/^ echoed Jimmie, with delight in his 
voice. 

^That^s the best news IVe heard this long 
while,” remarked George, who despite his seem- 
ing valor, was secretly much distressed over the 
outlook. 

The thunder increased in violence. Then 
they heard the sweep of the wind ^through the 
pines and hemlocks on the shore. ' And in less 
than ten minutes the rain was pouring down like 
a deluge. 

They had secured things so that little harm 
would be done. Still, the outlook was far from 
attractive, with several hours of darkness ahead ; 
during which they must keep on constant guard, 
not kno^ng at what minute the wind might 
take a , notion to veer around to some quarter, 
thatr would send the waves dashing against the 
rockbound shore so near by. 

It seemed as severe a gale as the one they had 
experienced only, a, short time before. Indeed, 
Jack was of the opinion that the wind was even 
greater, though they did not feel it the same way, 
because of the shelter obtained from the land. 

They would never be apt to forget that night, 
no matter how time passed. 'Watching was 
serious business for Nick; and three times he 
was known to creep over tg where Herb kept his 
cracker bag, doubtless to interest himself in a 


176 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


littfer ^^snack,” so as to briefly forget his other 
troubles. 

Nor did Herb have the heart to take him to 
task about it. Their situation was so very dis- 
tressing that he could think of nothing else. 
Every time the lightning flamed athwart the 
black sky the boys would look out at the troubled 
waters stretching as far as the eye could see; or 
else send an anxious glance toward the grim 
rocks that loomed up so very close over their 
bows. 

Hours seemed like days. Nick groaned, and 
declared he ached in every bone. 

^What d^ye think of me, then?^' demanded 
Josh. ^^YouTe well padded; while I reckon my 
poor old bones are going to stick through, pretty 
soon. I dassent stand up, because George won’t 
let me; and yoiit can. I wish you had my berth, 
Buster.” 

But at last Herb declared that there were cer- 
tainly signs of dawn coming in the east. Every 
eye was turned that way; and upon learning that 
the news was true the boys began to take on 
fresh hope. 

“Well,” George said for the tenth time, “I’m 
glad of one thing, and that is we managed to 
get my engine in working order last night before 
supper. Goodness knows what a fix I’d have 
been in otherwise, if we had to put out to sea 
when the wind changed.” 


A NIGHT OF ANXIETY 


177 


^^Oh! murdher! I hope it won^t do the same!^^ 
exclaimed Jimmie, who overheard the remark, 
and was filled with dismay as he surveyed the 
wild scene that stretched away off toward the 
southern horizon. 

“Can’t we manage somehow to cook something 
w'arm?” asked George. 

“Yes, that’s it,” immediately echoed Nick, 
beginning to bustle around in the steady old 
Comfort, '^We’ll all feel so much better if we 
have breakfast. Nothing like a full stomach to 
put bravery in a fellow, I tell you.” 

“Oh! how brave you must feel all the time, 
then!” observed Josh, sarcastically. 

But Jack knew that this time the fat boy spoke 
the truth. When people are wet and shivering 
things are apt to look gloomy enough; but once 
warm them up, arid let them eat a hot meal, and 
somehow a rosy tinge begins to paint the picture. 

They knew just how to go about the matter; 
and those wonderful German Juwel kerosene 
gas stoves filled the bill to a dot; as Nick de- 
clared, after the delightful aroma of boiling 
coffee had begun to reach his eager nostrils. 

And while the wind still howled through the 
pines up on the high rocks, and the billows rolled 
away toward the south, growing in size as they 
drew farther off shore, the motor boat boys sat 
down to a tasty breakfast. 


178 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


“Now, this isn^t so bad,” observed Nick, as he 
started in on what had been dished out to him 
by Herb, who this time had done the cooking. 

“It will be for the boss if he don^t get to work 
in a hurry,” Josh flung across the watery space 
that separated the boats. 

“Don’t worry on my account,” laughed Herb. 
“I’ve got a mortgage on the balance in the fry- 
ingpan, and he’d better not touch it on his life.” 

“Think the bally old storm is over, Jack?” 
asked Nick, presently. 

“The worst of it is, and I believe the wind 
seems to be dying down a little,” came the ready 
reply, as Jack swept the heavens with anxious 
eyes. 

“I thought that last gust came out a little 
more toward the west,” remarked one of the 
others. 

“I’d hate to know that,” Jack said. “For 
old sailors say that when the wind backs up into 
the west, after being in the north, without going 
all the way around, it means a return of the 
storm, from another quarter.” 

“Time enough to get ashore yet!” muttered 
Josh. 

“Go ahead, if you want to,” George said 
grimly. “Take some grub along, if you make 
up your mind that way. But I don’t stir out 


A NIGHT OF ANXIETY 


179 


of this boat unless I^m thrown out. Understand 
that?” 

An hour later, and Jack saw that his worst 
fears were realized. 

“Wind’s getting around fast now, fellows,” he 
announced. 

“It sure is,” Herb admitted; for he had been 
noticing the increased roughness of the water for 
a little while back. 

“What must we do. Jack?” asked George, with 
set teeth, and that look of determination in his 
eyes that stood for so much. 

“Hold out as long as we can,” came the reply 
in a steady voice. “Then, when the danger of 
our being dashed against the rocks grows too 
great, we’U just have to up-anchor, and start 
our engines to moving. It will be safer for us 
out yonder than so near the shore.” 

Another half hour went by. Then the little 
boats were pitching and tossing violently, as the 
full force of the onrushing waves caught them. 

“Can’t stand it much longer. Jack!” called out 
George, who was having the most serious time 
of all. 

“Then we might as well make the move now 
as later!” called Jack. “So get going, both of 
you. And remember to stand by as close as you 
can, so that we may help in case an upset hap- 
pens to any boat.” 


180 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Of course George knew his chum had the 
cranky Wireless in mind when he said this; but 
the peril was not alone confined to the one boat. 

Accordingly the engines were started, the 
anchors gotten aboard after a tremendous 
amount of hard work; and the little motor boat 
fleet put to sea, with the intention of trying to 
ride the storm out as best they might. 

If the engines only continued faithful all might 
yet be well. 


PERIL IN THE STORM 


181 


CHAPTER XIX 

PERIL RIDES THE STORM WAVES 

<0 

There were anxious hearts among the young 
cruisers as they started to leave the vicinity of 
the shore, and head out upon the big heaving 
seas. 

So long as they could keep the boat^s bow on 
the danger would not be so great as if they tried 
to turn; when those foam-crested waves would 
strike them sideways, and threaten to turn them 
on their beam-ends; which would mean destruc- 
tion. 

The motors sang like angry bees whenever the 
little propellers chanced to be exposed after a 
retreating wave had passed. This was where the 
greatest peril lay; for the strain on the engine and 
shaft was terriffic at such times, owing to the 
rapid change of pace. 

So Jack, Herb and George found themselves 
compelled to stick constantly at the job, manip- 
ulating the lever, so as to shut off power with 
each passing wave. 

They did not make fast time away from the 
shore ; but at the end of half an hour had reached a 


182 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


point where it seemed the height of folly to go 
farther. 

^‘How is it, George?^’ Jack sang out. 

^ ^Everything moving smoothly over here so 
far,” came the reply. 

^^And you. Herb?” continued the commodore 
of the fleet. 

^‘No fault to find, only it’s hard work; and I 
hope we don’t have to keep it up all day,” replied 
the skipper of the Comfort. 

“I don’t think that is going to happen,” Jack 
observed. ^^Seems to me the wind is dying 
down. When that happens, the waves must 
gradually grow smaller. Perhaps by afternoon 
we may be able to proceed, and hunt for a harbor 
farther along.” 

“Well, now,” George remarked. “I wouldn’t 
be sorry any, let me tell you, fellows. I’ve been 
balancing here like a circus acrobat this blessed 
hour and more, till my legs are stiff.” 

“Think of me, would you!” bleated Nick. 

“Shucks! you’re like a ball, and nothing ought 
to hurt you!” declared Josh. 

“I’ve got feelings, all right, though,” the fat 
boy protested. “But I certain do hope we get 
our feet on solid ground right soon. I’d just 
love to see a fire going, and smell the hickory 
wood burning.” 

“Y'es, it’s something more than hickory wood 


PERIL IN THE STORM 


183 


you^re longing to smell, and we all know it for 
a fact,^’ Josh fired back at him. 

Nevertheless, they one and all did find en- 
couragement in what Jack had stated. The 
wind was certainly beginning to die out; and 
while as yet there could not be any appreciable 
difference noted in the size of the rollers upon 
which they mounted, to plunge into the abyss 
beyond, that would come in time. 

During the morning that followed the boys 
who handled the engines of those three little 
power boats found occasion to bless the makers 
of the staunch motors that stood up so valiantly 
under this severe test. 

They had taken on an additional supply of 
gasoUne while at the Soo, and there was little 
danger of this giving out. Still, as Nick said, 
this energy was all wasted, and reminded him 
of soldiers ^^beating time.” 

Now and then the boys were able to exchange 
remarks, especially the three who were not kept 
busy during this time. 

Jack listened to what was said, and while he 
made no attempt to break into the conversation, 
he gathered from it that at least Nick, Jimmie 
and Josh were about ready to call the west- 
ward cruise off, and turn around. 

So he made up his mind that the matter must 
be threshed out the very next time they could 


184 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


gather around a fire on shore. As for himseK, 
Jack was thinking along the same lines, and 
ready to go back to Mackinac Island^s quiet 
waters, in the straits between Lakes Huron and 
Michigan. 

Noon came along, to find them still buffeting 
the waves; but there had been a considerable 
change by then. 

After weVe had a bite,” called out Jack, at 
which Nick instantly showed attention; think 
we’d better make a start out of this. The waves 
you notice no longer break, and while your boat 
would roll more or less, George, I don’t think 
you’d be in any great danger of turning turtle, 
do you?” 

^^Oh! I’m only too willing to put out,” came 
the answer. ^ ^Anything but this horrible mark- 
ing time. I like to see the chips fly when I use 
an axe. I want to see results. And here, this 
blessed little motor has been churning away for 
hours, without getting away from our old stand. 
Yes, let’s eat and run.” 

“That would be bad for digestion,” spoke up 
Nick. “I don’t believe in hurrying over meals. 
I was warned against doing it, unless I wanted 
to waste away to skin and bones like Josh here.” 

“Oh! you can take as long as you like,” said 
Herb; “only get busy now, and dish up anything 
you can find. There’s some cold baked beans 


PERIL IN THE STORM 


185 


handy; and open some of that potted beef; it 
ought to be tasty with the crackers and cheese/^ 
on the job right off/^ declared Nick. 
“You know you never have to hurry me about 
getting things to eat.’^ 

“Mebbe that’s why your digestion is so good,” 
said Herb, sarcastically; but the fat boy only 
grinned as he crawled back to where the eatables 
were kept. 

Later on they did head more toward the west, 
and start moving through the swinging seas. 
Constant watchfulness became necessary, for 
there was always danger that in some unguarded 
moment one of the billows might roll a boat 
over like a chip. 

So they kept going on, constantly varying 
their course to meet emergencies, and making 
progress along the coast. It was splendid 
maneuvring for the young pilots of the motor 
boats; though they rather thought they had had 
quite enough of it, and would be only too glad to 
call a halt. 

Jack was watching the shore line ahead, when- 
ever he could, in order to learn if a haven came 
in sight. He had Jimmie frequently use the 
glasses when they were on a wave crest; and 
kept hoping to hear him cry out that he believed 
he had sighted the harbor they hoped to make 
before night came on. 


186 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


As the waves still further diminished in size, 
they were enabled to make better time, since 
they no longer feared an upset. Indeed, about 
the middle of the afternoon they ceased entirely 
to head the boats into any billow; and all of 
them declared that they felt proud of what had 
been accomplished. 

“I say, Jack!^’ called out George, as the two 
boats happened to draw near each other. 

“Well, what is it?^’ answered the one addressed, 
popping his head up. 

“How does it come, d^ye suppose, that we 
haven’t seen a blessed steamer all this morning, 
going in either direction?” George went on. 

“Why,” replied Jack. “Because they had 
warning from the weather bureau that a storm 
was coming, and delayed starting out. These 
captains know what it is to meet up with a Lake 
Superior storm.” 

“Yes,” spoke up Jimmie, “it’s only the nervy 
little boats like ours that laugh at all the blows 
as comes along. Look at us, would ye, smashin’ 
through the big waves like the sassy things. 
Slap! bang! and come again, would ye? Sure, 
it’s weather on’y fit for motor boats, it do be.” 

“Yes,” laughed George, “we’re all mighty 
brave about now; but I tell you boys, I felt 
squeamish for hours when the storm was on. I 
knew what would happen to us if the wind whip- 


PERIL IN THE STORM 


187 


ped around before morning. Excuse me from 
another experience like that. Wonder where 
Clarence and Joe were then?’’ 

“That’s so, they did go on,” Jack remarked. 
“I hope they had shelter. 1 wouldn’t want my 
worst enemy to be wrecked on such a terrible 
night.” 

A short time later Jimmie cried out again: 
“There do be a steamer cornin’ along there. 
Jack!” 

“Steamer nothing!” echoed Josh, who hap- 
pened to be using George’s glasses at the same 
time. “I’ve been watching that thing for five 
minutes now. And do you know what I think 
it is, fellows?” 

“What?” demanded Jack, who could not leave 
his duties even for the minute that it would take 
to glance through the glasses. 

“A wreck!” exclaimed Josh, with thrilling 
emphasis. 

Then everybody sat up, and began to look 
eagerly in the direction mentioned. It was far 
out over the troubled waters; and the object 
could only be seen when it happened to be lifted 
on the crest of a wave. 

“It is that same, upon me worrd!” cried Jim- 
mie, presently. “I cud say the thing thin as 
plain as the nose on me face.” 

“And boys, there’s some kind of a flag floating 
on it,” Josh went on. 


188 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^^Upside down?” questioned Nick, eagerly. 

^Xooks like it to me,” came the answer. 

^Then it^s a wreck, all right; because that^s 
the signal of distress,” Nick continued, now 
raising Herb^s glasses for a look. 

^^Oh! my! I believe it^s them!” he ejaculated a 
minute later. 

At that Jack could stand it no longer. 

^^Here, Jimmie, you grab hold, and run this 
boat,” he said. “Keep her nose pointed just 
as she runs now, and whatever you do, don^t 
swing around, broadside on.” 

Then, as Jimmie took hold of the wheel, the 
skipper raised the glasses for a look, while George 
awaited his report with ill-concealed eagerness. 

“There, look now, Jack!” cried Josh. 

Presently Jack took down the glasses, and 
there was a grave expression on his face. 

“What did you see. Jack?” demanded George. 
“Something that^s bothered you some, I can tell 
by the way you frown.” 

“ThaPs a sinking craft, all right, George,” 
replied the other, as he turned on all the power 
his engine was capable of producing, and sent 
the Tramp speeding directly into the waves. 
“More than that, I^m afraid I did recognize it, 
and, just as Nick said, iPs the power boat. Mer- 
maid, carrying the banker, Mr. Roland Andrews, 
and his party. Boys, we must hurry to their 
rescue before they go down!” 


PAYING THE PENALTY 


189 


CHAPTER XX 

PAYING THE PENALTY 

Immediately the little fleet of motor boats had 
taken up a course leading directly for the floating 
wreck. It looked like the height of folly for 
such miniature craft to thus put boldly out upon 
the bosom of that great inland sea; and nothing 
save a call to duty would ever have influenced 
Jack to make the venture. 

They were strangely quiet as they continued 
to buffet the oncoming waves. Once in a while 
some one would ask the wielder of the marine 
glasses what he could see, and in this way all were 
kept informed. 

Nick was trembling, so that there were times 
when he could hardly hold the glasses to his 
eyes. 

see her!^^ he suddenly shouted in rapture. 
^^Sallie’s still there, fellows ! I can tell her among 
the lot. There, she sees me, I think, for the 
darling is waving her handkerchief! She wants 
me to hurry along, fellows; perhaps the blessed 
waterlogged power boat is getting ready to dip 
under! Can’t you throw on just a little more 


190 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


speed, Herb? Please do, to oblige me/^ 

No one thought to laugh, nor did Josh come 
up true to his name just then; for somehow they 
seemed to understand that it was a grave matter, 
and no time for joking. 

Jack could see the figures on the partly sub- 
merged boat with the naked eye now, they were 
getting so close. 

^^Do you see the other girl, Rita Andrews?” 
he asked Jimmie; and was more pleased than he 
cared to show when the Irish boy answered in 
the affirmative. 

^^Oh! I only hope we get there in time!” 
groaned Nick, as he fumbled at the cork life pre- 
server, as though intending to put it on again. 

^^What are you going to do with that thing, 
Buster?” demanded Herb, sharply. 

^^Get it around me,” the other replied, un- 
blushingly. 

^^But you won’t need it; there’s not the least 
chance of our upsetting now.” 

^^AU the same,” Nick responded, calmly; 
^ffiow do I know but I may have to jump over- 
board after Sallie? She might slip in her great 
joy at seeing her preserver so near. And a pretty 
fellow I’d be not to keep myself ready to do 
the hero act. Besides, Herb, how do we know 
that the bally old boat mayn’t take a notion to 
duck under, just when we get close by? I be- 
lieve in being prepared.” 


PAYING THE PENALTY 


191 


^^You^re right, Buster,’’ nodded the skipper. 
^Take my cork jacket too if so be you think 
you’ll need it. But please don’t go to jumping 
over just to show off. You might drown before 
her very eyes.” 

^^Oh! I’ll be careful. Herb. But since you say 
so, I believe I will keep your cork affair handy. 
She might need it; because you see, Sallie is no 
light weight, any more than me.” 

He crouched there waiting, doubtless counting 
the seconds as they passed, and anxiously taking 
note of all that went on in the quarter whence 
they were headed. 

Jack himself grew more nervous the closer they 
drew to the wreck. He realized that those on 
board were in extreme peril; for the powerboat 
seemed to be gradually sinking lower, inch by 
inch. At almost any time now it might give one 
tremendous heave, and then plunge, bow first, 
down in many fathoms of water, perhaps drag- 
ging some of the people aboard to death. 

But at the same time Jack was figuring just 
how he and Herb must approach the wreck on 
the leeward side, where it would in a measure 
protect the small motor boats from the sweep 
of the seas. Here they would be able to take 
aboard as many of the imperiled ones as the res- 
cuing craft could reasonably hold. 


192 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Jack also noted that there was a large life- 
boat on the sinking craft. Possibly the oars had 
been swept away, rendering the craft helpless 
and useless. But if it could only be launched, 
the crew might occupy this, and be towed to 
safety by one of the little motor boats. 

He fashioned his hands into a megaphone, 
while Jimmie tended the engine for a minute, and 
in this way called out: 

^TTave that boat launched. It will hold the 
crew, and we will give them a tow to the shore. 
Quick, sir; you have no time to lose!^’ 

He saw the captain of the powerboat, still 
wearing his uniform, though without the jaunty 
blue cap that had once been a part of his make- 
up, give hurried orders. Then the lifeboat was 
shoved off the low deck, being held with a rope. 

And a few minutes later the Tramp and the 
Comfort hauled in close under the lee of the big 
powerboat. 

^^Ladies first!^’ sang out Nick, as he balanced 
himself so as to be able to render any needed as- 
sistance. 

Greatly to his joy Sallie seemed to choose the 
Comfort as her refuge. Perhaps she recognized 
the fact that it was by all odds the largest of the 
three motor boats, and hence more suitable to 
her heft. But it would be hard to convince Nick 
that this was the true reason. She saw him, and 


PAYING THE PENALTY 


193 


was willing to entrust herself in the charge of one 
who bore himself so gallantly. 

Jack meanwhile had the pleasure of assisting 
the pretty and vivacious httle Miss Andrews, 
whose first name was Rita, into his boat; to be 
followed by another lady passenger, and then the 
banker himself. The balance of the passengers 
managed to embark on the Comfort. George 
stood by, and offered to take one or two; but no 
one seemed to particularly care to entrust them- 
selves on such a wobbly craft. 

The captain and his little crew entered the 
lifeboat. 

^^Now, everybody get away as quick as you 
can!^^ called the man in uniform, ^^because she’s 
going down any minute. Make haste, or we 
may be drawn under by the suction.” 

George had taken the long rope attached to the 
bow of the lifeboat, and fastened it securely to 
a ringbolt at the stern of his Wireless. He now 
started away, as did the other rescuing craft. 

And none too soon was this maneuvre accom- 
plished. Hardly had they gone ten boat lengths 
before a little shriek from Sallie announced that 
the final catastrophe was about to take place. 

There was an upheaval of the sinking power- 
boat, a tremendous surge, and then only bubbles 
and foam on the surface told where the unlucky 
pleasure craft had vanished. 


194 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Little Miss Andrews cried a bit, perhaps be- 
cause of the nervous excitement; but her father 
cheered her up. 

^^Never mind, Rita,” he said. ^‘The boat was 
insured, and we can get another and better one 
when we want it. But for this season I think 
weVe had about enough of the water. I tell 
you we ought to think ourselves fortunate to have 
these fine fellows come out to us just in the nick 
of time. We^ll never forget it, will we, girlie?” 

Whereupon Jack was delighted to see the tears 
give way to a bright smile, as Rita looked at him, 
and nodded. 

'^How queer it seems,” she remarked demurely, 
a little later. ^Tirst Jack had to save my hat 
from a watery grave; and now he has rescued 
poor little me. Yes, I mean that he won’t forget 
us, dad. And I hope that we’ll see him some 
time at our Oak Park home, don’t you?” 

^We’U try and influence him, and also his 
brave chums, in whom I find myself deeply in- 
terested. Come to think of it, I fancy I already 
have something of an acquaintance with a Mr. 
Harvey Stormways, belonging in the town Jack 
calls his home. The one I met in Chicago was 
a banker, and a very clever gentleman.” 

^That is my father,” said Jack, rosy with 
pleasure to think that his parent already knew 
Rita’s father. 


PAYING THE PENALTY 


195 


Later on they discovered a landing place and 
managed to get ashore. All of them were de- 
lighted to once more set foot on solid land after 
their recent harrowing experiences. 

And such a night they made of it. The cap- 
tain had wisely secured a lot of stores before 
leaving the wreck of the Mermaid^ so that there 
was little danger of any famine. Besides, as 
George said, aside, any camp that had been able . 
to withstand the raids and assaults of a Buster 
all this while, would not be caught without 
plenty of eatables in the larder. 

Around the camp fire they even made merry, 
since no lives had been lost in the wreck. Mr. 
Andrews told how they had escaped the first 
storm, only to be caught in the second, and 
rammed by some floating object, the nature of 
which they could only guess. 

The pumps were manned, but by slow degrees 
the water had gained on them in spite of all their 
herculean efforts. And as we have seen, only 
for the coming of the motor boat boys a tragedy 
might have followed. 

In the morning Jack promised to take them out 
to the first steamer that could be signalled, the 
crew in the lifeboat being towed behind the 
Comfort 

This he did, assisted by Herb. 

And the balance of the young cruisers stood 


196 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


on the wooded bank, waving their hats and 
cheering as long as they could make their voices 
heard. 

Nick was as happy as any one had ever seen 
him. Sallie had seemed to be fairly smitten 
with the charms of the fat boy, or else fancied 
having some girlish fun out of the meeting and 
their one trait in common; for she certainly had 
hovered near Buster since breakfast time, ^^mak- 
ing goo goo eyes at him,” as Josh declared. And 
now Nick, wishing to be in a position to see bet- 
ter than his chums, took the trouble to laboriously 
climb a tree that hung far out over the water. 

Here, high above the heads of the rest, he sat 
and waved his red sweater, as an object that 
must attract the sparkling eyes of Miss Sallie 
longer than an ordinary hat, or white handker- 
chief. 

“Hurray! hurray!” he shouted at the top of his 
voice; but perhaps Buster may have been too 
violent in his gestures, or else neglected to main- 
tain his grasp on the limb; for suddenly there 
was an awful splash, and the fat boy vanished 
out of sight in the lake, which happened to be 
fairly deep close up to the shore. 


ANOTHER SURPRISE 


197 


CHAPTER XXI 

ANOTHER SURPRISE 

^^Help! help!^^ 

‘^What’s all the row about?” 

‘^Buster^s fallen in again! Somebody get a 
rope, and lasso him!” 

^There he comes up! My! what a flounder- 
ing time! He may be drowned, Jack!” 

But Jack knew better, and only laughed as he 
replied to Herb: 

^^You forget that he’s still wearing that lovely 
cork life preserver. It gives him such a manly 
look; and Buster thinks it adds to the admiration 
of a certain young lady.” 

Meantime there was a tremendous lot of 
splashing going on in that little basin just under 
the big tree, where Nick had been perched at the 
time of his tumble. 

Both arms were working overtime, like a 
couple of flails in a thrashing bee; while his 
chubby legs shot back and forth after the manner 
of an energetic frog. All the while Buster was 
spouting water like a miniature geyser; for his 
mouth had happened to be wide open at 


198 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


the time of his unexpected submersion. 

^ Throw me a rope, somebody he spluttered, 
as he continued to make manful efforts to keep 
from sinking. ^^What d’ye stand there gaping 
for? Can’t you see I’m in danger of drowning? 
Hurrj^ up your cakes, you sillies!” 

There w^as no doubt but that Nick believed 
every word he spoke; for he was making a tre- 
mendous display of energy that would long re- 
main a topic for wonder among his comrades. 

Herb started to scurry around to find some- 
thing that would be available in the rescue line. 

^^Jack, the poor fellow may be partly stunned, 
and unable to keep up much longer. Help me 
find a rope, won’t you?” he cried, as he passed the 
other. 

^^Hold on. Herb, now watch how easy it is 
to save a drowning man,” and as Jack said this 
he turned to where Nick was making a young 
Niagara Whirlpool Rapids of himself, and called 
sternly: 

^^Buster, stand up!” 

Lo; and behold, when the imperiled fat boy 
proceeded to obey this command the water 
barely reached to his chest. Looking rather 
crest-fallen and sheepish he started to wade 
out of the lake; while the boys burst into a roar 
that must have even been heard by those on 
board the steamer. 


ANOTHER SURPRISE 


199 


Nick was in a rather pugnacious humor, for 
him, as he arrived dripping on the bank. Per- 
haps the merriment of his mates had something 
to do with it; but the chances are he dreaded 
lest a pair of laughing blue eyes on the departing 
steamer may have witnessed his ridiculous up- 
set. 

^^Who pushed me in?^’ he demanded, as he 
gave vent to another upheaval of water. ^^Tell 
me that, will you? It was a mean trick, and he 
ought to be ducked just as bad as I was. Seems 
like a pity a fellow can’t just sit up on the limb 
of a tree to wave good-bye to a pretty girl without 
some envious rival putting up a game on him. 
Who did it? I dare him to tell!” 

^^Rats! you’re away off your base, Buster!” 
cried George. 

''Quit raising the lake that way, can’t you?” 
complained Josh. "Want to flood us out of our 
camp, do you?” 

"Buster, nobody was near you when you fell,” 
said Jack, "I don’t think there was one of us 
within ten feet of the tree. And besides, you 
were up out of reach. You let go both hands and 
slipped. It was your own fault. And we didn’t 
help you out because I knew you had on that 
cork thing; besides, the water wasn’t over your 
head, as I found out some time ago. So don’t 
accuse anybody of being mean.” 


200 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^^And next time you want to take the middle 
of the stage just let us know. You gave us an 
aw^ful jolt/’ remarked George. 

^^Why, if I’d had heart disease I’d have drop- 
ped flat,” vowed Josh. 

^^Oh! let up on me, can’t you, and don’t rub 
it in so hard?” grumbled the dripping Nick. 
‘^Now I’ve got to go and get these duds off. And 
it’ll take a long while for ’em to dry. Nice way 
to use a new suit, ain’t it?” 

^Well, it’s lucky for the trade that you’ve 
come up here.” Herb put in. ^The clothing 
business will take on a boom soon. What with 
Canada pussies, and upsets into the lake, you 
can get away with more suits than the rest of 
us.” 

^^But I haven’t got another bunch of clothes 
along,” whimpered Nick, “and it’s sure too 
chilly to run around without anything on. Jack 
won’t you help me out?” 

“I guess I can lend you a pair of trousers, 
Buster, if you can get into them. Don’t forget 
that fine red sweater you possess. Josh, pull it 
down from that branch, will you? So you see, 
you’U get along till these duds dry out,” replied 
the one addressed. 

“But stick to the camp while you’re wearing 
that sweater, Buster,” warned Josh. “Perhaps 
there ain’t any cows around here; but even a bull 


ANOTHER SURPRISE 


201 


moose would want to boost you up in a tree if he 
ever saw that rag/’ 

^'Oh! I’ll hug the fire, all right; don’t you worry 
about me, Josh Purdue,” was the fat boy’s re- 
ply, as he made off, the water still oozing from 
his soaked garments in streams. 

Jack wisely put in the balance of the morning 
fishing, and with abundant success, as was evi- 
denced from the fact that they had another de- 
lightful fish dinner that noon. Josh serving the 
trout in his usual tempting manner, crisp and 
brown. 

As his clothes had meantime dried, through 
the action of combined sun and camp fire, Nick 
gradually became himself again. It took con- 
siderable to upset his good nature; and the boys 
never could fully decide whether he had been in 
earnest concerning that episode of the ^^sreat 
splash,” or simply pretending to be indignant. 

^^And now, what’s the programme?” asked 
Jack, as, having eaten until they could no longer 
be tempted, they sat back to talk over the future 
activities of the motor boat club. 

'Tellows,” remarked George, seriously. ^T’ve 
come to the conclusion that we’re making a mis- 
take in cruising over such big water as this.” 

^'Hear! hear!” called Nick, clapping his hands. 

^^Boats as small as ours seem out of their ele- 
ment on an ocean,” continued the skipper of the 


202 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


WirelesSj steadily. ^They're all right in such 
places as the Thousand Islands, where plenty of 
harbors are in sight all the time. But just think 
what might happen up here. Suppose the wind 
had chopped around the other night, instead of 
kindly holding off till morning. What would 
have happened to us?” 

^‘Oh! well,” remarked Herb; 'Ve all know the 
answer to that riddle, George. Since we couldnT 
well make out into the open lake in the storm 
during darkness, why, every boat must have 
been smashed against the rocks. Makes me 
shiver to just think of it; and that’s right, fel- 
lows.” 

^Terhaps one or more of us might have gone 
under.” George went on. ^^Now, when we 
got permission to make this cruise we promised 
not to take unnecessary risks — am I right, fel- 
lows?” 

“Sure you are, George. Hit up the pace, will 
you? Buster here is getting sleepy, waiting for 
the verdict,” Josh said, after his customary 
fashion. 

“Then I’m going to offer a suggestion; and if 
Jack says so. I’ll put it in the form of a motion,” 
George continued. 

“Make it a motion without all this fuss and 
feathers,” observed Herb. 

“I move, then, that we abandon our original 


ANOTHER SURPRISE 


203 


intention of knocking along this north shore of 
Superior till we arrive at Duluth, where we 
could ship our boats home. It wouldn^t pay us 
for the trouble and the danger. It’s a barren 
country. If we had an accident there’s no place 
to have repairs done short of several hundred 
miles. In a word, fellows, this is no hunting 
ground for little motor boats. Besides, with a 
sly glance toward Nick, what if our grub gives 
out, as it’s likely to do at any time, once Buster 
gets to feeling himself again; why, we might 
starve to death, fellows, in the midst of plenty.” 

^ ^You’ve heard the motion, fellows — that we 
change our programme, and give up this Lake 
Superior trip. All in favor say aye!” Jack re- 
marked. 

A chorus of assents followed. 

^^Contrary, no!” went on the commodore; but 
only silence followed. 

^^Motion is carried unanimously, ’’Jack went on. 
^^And now, let’s consider what is to take the place 
of this trip. We’ve still got some weeks ahead 
of us, the fishing’s fine, and we’re a long way 
from Milwaukee. Somebody suggest something.’' 

George and Jack had of course talked this 
thing over more than once recently. So no one 
was surprised when the former immediately 
jumped up, and began: 

‘Tor one, I’m of the opinion we couldn’t do 


204 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


better than return over part of the way we came. 
Between the Soo and Mackinac Island there^s 
fine cruising ground to be explored. We can 
take a different route part of the way back 
through the St. Mary’s River, and perhaps find 
new mud banks, with a few more strange animals 
on the Canada side. Besides Jack says the bass 
fishing is just great in some places they told him 
about at the Soo.” 

“Hurrah! Me for the St. Mary’s then,” Nick 
shouted, to hide his confusion at mention of 
strange beasts, for of course he knew what that 
referred to. 

“The prospect of the merry bass frizzling over 
the coals coaxes Buster,” declared Josh; “but 
on general principles, fellows, I don’t see how we 
could improve on that programme. Count me 
in on it, George.” 

“Any other suggestions?’^ asked Jack. “If 
there are, now is the time to speak up, before 
we decide our plans. We can settle on just the 
day we ought to leave Mackinac for the run 
down Michigan to Milwaukee, and so get home 
on the dot. How is it, fellows? Do I hear 
another scheme offered?” 

“Make it unanimous. Jack,” said Herb. “You 
know we’re pretty much of one mind; and we 
ought to get all the fun going out of that 
programme.” 

“Then we start back tomorrow?” said Jack. 


ANOTHER SURPRISE 


205 


‘'Right after breakfast,” Josh added. 

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Nick. “I hope 
none of you would be silly enough to ever think 
of leaving here before breakfast!” 

“Oh! that will never happen, so long as we 
have an alarm clock in the bunch. We depend 
on you, Buster, to warn us when its time to eat 
our three meals a day,” George said blandly. 

“Now, I didn^t expect that of you George,” 
remarked Nick. “But if you really mean it, 
thank you! I^m glad to know I^m of some use 
to the crowd.” 

“Why, Buster, we wouldn’t know how to keep 
house without you,” remarked Jack. 

“What would we be after doing with the left- 
overs?” ventured Jimmie. 

“And how would I keep my big boat evenly 
balanced?” demanded Herb. “Sure you fill 
a place in the circle, Buster, and a very impor- 
tant one. We’d miss you if you ever gave up 
the ship, and took the train back home.” 

“Well, I promise you I won’t,” smiled Nick; 
“at least so long as you keep up the same sort 
of bill of fare we’ve had today. Yum! yum! 
what’s the use of wasting a fine piece of browned 
trout like that? I call it a wicked shame. 
Here, Josh, don’t you dare throw that away. 
Set it aside on that nice clean piece of birch bark. 
Somebody might get hungry later on, and enjoy 
a bite.” 


206 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


This standing joke of Nick^s clamorous ap- 
petite seemed never to lose its edge. The rest 
of the boys could always enjoy seeing him make 
way with his share of the meal. In fact, had a 
change come over the fat boy, they would have 
felt anxious, believing him sick. 

So Jack went back to his fishing, of which he 
seemed never to tire, and the others found some- 
thing to employ their time and attention while 
the afternoon sun dropped lower toward the 
western horizon. 

By now the Big Lake looked like a lookingglass, 
so still had the waves become. A haze prevented 
them from seeing any great distance away — one 
of those mid-summer atmospheric happenings 
that are apt to develop at any time when the 
weather is exceedingly warm. 

Evening came at last, and they sat as usual 
around the camp fire, having enjoyed the meal 
Josh and his willing assistants, Jimmie and Nick, 
had placed before them. Everything looked 
favorable for getting off in the morning; and 
should the lake remain calm Jack believed they 
might be able to make the Soo by another night. 

Suddenly, and without the slightest warning 
a disturbing factor was injected into this quiet 
restful camp. Jack thought he heard a sound 
like a groan near by, and raised his head to 
listen. Yes, there was certainly a movement 


ANOTHER SURPRISE 


207 


at the west side of the camp, as though some- 
thing was advancing. And as he stared, his 
hand unconsciously creeping out toward the 
faithful little Marlin shotgun, a figure arose and 
came staggering toward the group. 

Loud cries broke out as the boys scrambled 
to their feet. And there was a good excuse for 
their consternation; for in this ragged, dirty, and 
altogether disreputable figure they recognized, 
not a wandering hobo, but Bully Joe, the crony 
of Clarence Macklin! 


208 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


CHAPTER XXII 

TO THE RESCUE 

Joe Brinker was a sorry sight as he staggered 
forward, and fell almost at the feet of Jack. He 
certainly looked as though he had been through 
a rough experience since last they saw him with 
Clarence aboard the Flash. 

“WTiy, iPs Joe!” exclaimed Nick, as though he 
had just recognized the intruder. 

Jack had jumped forward, and was now bend- 
ing over the newcomer. 

‘^Here, Josh, any hot coffee left in the pot?” 
he demanded, seeing that the other looked utterly 
exhausted, as though he might not have partaken 
of food for many hours. 

Josh immediately poured out a cup, and 
handed it to Jack. 

^^Sit up here, and swallow this, Joe,” said Jack, 
supporting the fellow with one arm, and holding 
the tin cup to his lips. 

Joe eagerly gulped down the warm drink. It 
seemed to do him a world of good right on the 
spot; for when a cup of hot tea or coffee is avail- 
able, it is utter folly to think strong drink is 


TO THE RESCUE 


209 


necessary in reviving a chilled or exhausted 
person. 

^^Oh! that tastes fine. Got any more, boys? 
I^m nearly starved,” ^he exclaimed, almost crying 
with weakness. 

Already had Nick hurried over, and seized 
upon several cold flapjacks that possibly he had 
placed away, against one of his little bites be- 
tween meals. Surely Nick ought to know what 
an awdul thing hunger was. One of the most 
dreadful recollections of his life was a time when 
he had been compelled to go all of eight hours 
without a solitary scrap of food passing his lips! 

Soon Joe was devouring the flapjacks with the 
eagerness of a hungry dog, to the evident delight 
of Buster, who always found pleasure in seeing 
any one eat heartily. 

“Now tell us what happened, Joe?” said Jack, 
after they had watched the other make away with 
the last scrap, and look around for more. 

“Yes, don^t you see we^re just crazy to hear?” 
Josh exclaimed. 

“Did you get caught in that storm?” de- 
manded George, suspecting the truth. 

Joe nodded his head in the affirmative, and 
they could see a shudder pass over his form, as 
though the remembrance was anything but 
cheerful. 

“Then the Flash must have been wrecked?” 


210 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


George went on, horrified as the remembrance 
of Clarence^s face came before him. 

^^Gone to flinders!” muttered Joe. ^^Smashed 
on the rocks, and not a scrap left to tell the story. 
Gee it was tough, all right!” 

— ^was Clarence drowned?” Nick gasped, 
with awe-struck face; and quivering all over 
like a bowl full of jelly. 

^^Oh! no, neither of us went under,” replied 
Joe, promptly, to the great relief of all the boys. 
^^But we came mighty near it, I tell you, fellers. 
I^m a duck in the water, you know, and I guess 
I helped Clarence get ashore. He said I did, 
anyway. And there we was, far away from 
everything, with not one bite to eat, or even a 
gun to defend ourselves against wild animals.” 

^^Wow! that was tough!” admitted Nick, 
sympathetically; as he remembered his own ex- 
ploit when the Canada lynx invaded the camp, 
and how useful the shotgun proved on that oc- 
casion. 

^^But it wasn^t the worst, fellers! There^s 
more acominM” Joe went on, shaking his head 
solemnly. 

^^My gracious! did wild animals get poor old 
Clarence after all?” George asked. 

“No,” Joe went on, with set teeth', “but a 
couple of men did that was as bad as any wild 
animals you ever heard tell of. They found us 


TO THE RESCUE 


211 


trying to make a fire to dry our wringing wet 
clothes; and they just treated us shameful. See 
this black eye I got just because I dared answer 
back. They kicked poor Clarence like he was a 
bag of oats.^^ 

^Two men, you say?^^ Jack asked, frowning 
darkly. ^^What sort of men could they be to 
act like that toward a pair of shipwrecked boys?^^ 

^^They looked like lumber cruisers, or pros- 
pectors that never struck it rich,^^ Joe continued. 
^‘They had a grouch agin everybody. First 
thing they took what money we had, and Clar- 
ence^s fine watch that was water-soaked and 
wouldnT run. Then they found out who we 
was by reading some letters he carried. I saw 
^em talking it over; and then they tied us to a 
couple of trees.” 

“Why, I never heard of such a wicked thing!” 
ejaculated the startled Nick; whose mouth kept 
wide open while he listened to this thrilling story 
of Joe^s. 

“Do you think they meant to try and force 
blackmail?” asked the far-seeing George, whose 
father was a lawyer, it may be remembered. 

“They said something about him writing home 
for more money to buy another motor boat,” 
Joe replied. “And Clarence said he never would 
do it, not even if they tortured him. But Fm 
afraid a few more kickings like they gave us will 
break down his spirit.” 


212 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


^Then you managed to escape?'^ Jack went 
on, wishing to learn the whole thing. 

^^Yes. I worked loose, and slipped away when 
neither of ^em was lookin’.’^ answered the rag- 
ged and dirty figure. ^^But give me some more 
grub, fellers. I'm starving, I tell you. They 
refused to give us a bite to eat tiU Clarence agreed 
to do all they wanted of him. Anything, so's 
I can fiU up. I've got a hole down there that 
feels hke Mammoth Cave." 

Again it was Nick who hastened to procure 
another stock of eatables, crackers and cheese, 
or anything else that came handy. 

^^When did you escape, Joe?" asked Jack, 
seriously as though some plan had already 
started to form in his active brain. 

“Don't know for sure," replied the exhausted 
one. “Sometime after noon, though. They 
was layin' down and snoozing when I got free. 
I wanted to find a knife, and cut Clarence loose 
too; but the risk scared me. And Clarence, he 
told me to hurry and get off for help. You see, 
one of the men was sitting up, and rubbing his 
eyes; so I just sneaked away." 

“Did they follow after you, Joe?" asked 
George. 

“Never waited to see," replied the other, “but 
just cut stick, and hurried off. Oh! I've had an 
awfful time getting along near the shore. Das- 


TO THE RESCUE 


213 


sent get out of sight of the lake because you see 
I was that scared I'd get lost. I tumbled a 
thousand times, cut my head and hands on the 
rocks, nearly slipped into the lake twice, and 
was just ready to lay down and die, when night 
came on. Then I saw a fire over here, and just 
managed to make the riffle. Give you my word, 
fellers, if it'd been half a mile more I never'd got 
to camp." 

^Then Clarence is still in the hands of those 
two rascals?" Jack asked. 

‘T reckon he is, 'less they saw fit to let him go 
free; and from what I seen of 'em, that ain't their 
game." 

‘^How far do you suppose that place was away 
from here?" came from careful George. 

Joe sat silent for a minute. He seemed to be 
trying to figure what manner of slow progress 
he may have made since effecting his freedom. 

thought I'd gone nigh twenty miles, judgin' 
by the way I felt," he finally said; '^but come to 
figger it out I reckon it mightn't abeen more'n 
five." 

“Toward the west, you mean; for you came 
from that direction?" Jack continued. 

“Yes, that's so, over that way," pointing as he 
spoke. 

Jack turned to his chums. 

“It's up to us, boys," he said soberly. “Clar- 


214 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


ence has never been one of us ; but he belongs to 
our school. We^d never forgive ourselves if we 
went back to the Soo tomorrow, and left him 
in the hands of these scoundrels. Do you agree 
with me?” 

^That’s right, Jack!” sang out George. 

^^Sure we would be cold-blooded to think of 
it,” Josh declared. 

^^Them^s my sentiments,” Herb spoke up; 
and both Nick and Jimmie nodded their heads 
violently, to prove that they were in no way be- 
hind their comrades in wishing to do a good deed 
toward one who had long been an open enemy. 

^Then let^s consider what way we ought to go 
about it,” Jack proceeded, with an air of business. 
^Tt^s out of the question for us to try and go 
back the way Joe came. We couldn^t make it 
under hours; and from his looks none of us are 
hankering after the experience. But there is a 
way to get there quickly.” 

^The boats?” George put in. 

“One boat ought to carry all who will go, and 
let that be the Comfort j with five of us on board, 
taking the two guns to make a good show,” 
Jack proceeded. 

Nick immediately set up a whine. 

“I guess I have feelings,” he declared. “Don’t 
I know you’re just going to shut me out of this 
rescue game? I’m ready to do my part as well 


TO THE RESCUE 


215 


as the next one, ain’t I? What you want to 
leave me behind for?” 

^^You’ve got to obey orders, Buster,” said 
George. 

“And besides, with so many aboard, the bully 
old Comfort might founder,” Josh thought it 
necessary to remark. 

“Besides, you are going to have your share 
of the work, and along a line you always like,” 
Jack went on; “for while we’re gone, it shall be 
your duty to make a new brew of coffee, fill Joe 
here cram up with all he can eat, and have 
something ready for Clarence when we bring 
him back. So you see, Buster, your duty is as 
important as any of ours. Every one in their 
particular line. You can’t fight as well as Jim- 
mie here; but you do know how to provide against 
starvation.” 

Nick smiled broadly again, entirely appeased. 

“Count on me. Commodore,” he said, briskly. 
^^Where’s that coffeepot right now? I’ll do my 
duty to the letter. Why, it’s a pleasure to look 
after the wants of a hungry fellow. It gives 
me something of an appetite just to think of the 
work I’ve got cut out for me.” 

Jack put Nick and Joe out of his mind, after 
trying to get a little information from the latter, 
with regard to the character of the place where 
the Flash had been wrecked, and the two hard 


216 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


looking customers were supposed to be still 
stopping. 

They went aboard the Comfort Jack him- 
self decided to run the boat, with the assistance 
of Herb and George. Above aU things, silence 
was of more value to them just then than speed, 
if they hoped to steal up on the captors of Clar- 
ence without being detected. 

^^Good luck!” called Nick, as the broad beamed 
motor boat started quietly away. 


HOMEWARD BOUND 217 


CHAPTER XXIII 

HOMEWARD BOUND 

‘‘Look! isn’t that a fire over there?” asked 
sharp-eyed George, as he gripped Jack’s arm 
suddenly. 

They Qiad been moving cautiously along for 
the better part of an hour, striving in every way 
possible to avoid any drumming sound, such 
as nearly always betrays the presence of a motor 
boat near by. 

And in all that time they may have only cov- 
ered some four miles, or possibly five; for no 
effort was made to drive the Comfort at even 
half speed. 

^Xooks like it,” Jack replied, after a quick 
survey. ^^But how is it we didn’t glimpse it 
before?” 

think a point of rocks must stick out be- 
tween, and we’ve just opened the pocket,” 
George replied, in a whisper. 

Of course Jack had immediately shut off the 
power, so that old reliable Comfort stopped her 
forward movement, lying there on the dark 
waters like a log; for not a light of any descrip- 
tion did they carry aboard. 


218 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


we go ashore now?” asked Josh, softly; 
for all of them had been warned not to speak 
above a whisper from the time they started forth 
on their errand of mercy. 

^‘Yes,” Jack replied. ‘That’s one reason 
we’ve been keeping so close in. I’ll drop into 
the dinky, and use the paddle. Foot by foot 
I can pull the motor boat to shore, and then 
we’ll land.” 

“How lucky there’s not a breath of wind,” 
Herb remarked, as he helped Jack draw the small 
tender alongside, and then crawl over the side. 

Presently Jack was working away, having at- 
tached the painter of the boat to a cleat at the 
bow of the Comfort, His method of using the 
paddle insured utter silence. Had it been an 
expert hunter, moving up on a deer that was 
feeding on the lily pads along the border of a 
Canada stream, he could hardly have manipu- 
lated that little spruce blade with more care. 

And so, foot by foot, the motor boat was coaxed 
in nearer the rock-bound shore. When Jack 
had finally succeeded in accomplishing his end 
he next sought some place where those still 
aboard could disembark, and the Comfort be 
tied up while they went about the business that 
had brought them there. 

“Now, what next?” asked Herb, when the 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


219 


entire five had reached land, and the boat was 
amply secured to a split rock, with little danger 
of any injury resulting, because there was no 
wind and hence no movement to the water. 

“WeVe got to advance,^^ Jack replied. ^^So as 
to get around that point; when we’ll see the 
camp Joe told us about. Those fellows have got 
a big rowboat, he said, but hate to work the 
oars. He said they first talked of making the 
boys do the rowing; and then that scheme for 
getting more money came up. Are you ready 
for the job?” 

am that,” said Jimmie, promptly, flourish- 
ing a club that looked like a baseball bat; and 
which would be apt to prove a formidable 
weapon in hands that were as clever as those of 
the stout Irish lad. 

^^Count me in,” remarked Herb, who was car- 
rying a hatchet; having nothing else to serve him 
as a threatening weapon that might strike terror 
to the hearts of the enemy. 

^^And I’m only too anxious to look in on ’em. 
Let me eat ’em up!” Josh growled, flourishing 
the camp bread knife in a most dreadful fashion. 

George had his rifle, and of course Jack carried 
the repeating Marlin shotgun which had proven 
its value on many another occasion. 

^Then come on, and be mighty careful, every- 
body,” Jack cautioned, as he led off. 


220 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


They remembered what Joe had said about the 
“rough sledding^’ he had found in his endeavor 
to keep close to the water^s edge, so that he 
might not get lost. And every one of the five 
were willing to admit that Joe spoke the truth 
when he told this; for they made the slowest 
kind of progress. 

Still, every yard passed over took them so 
much closer to the goal. And so long as they 
did not tumble and make a noise that would 
warn the enemy, it mattered little or nothing 
about the time they took in covering the ground. 

After a long time spent in this sort of crawling 
business Jack believed he could see what seemed 
to be a fire flickering among the stunted trees. 

Calling the attention of the others to this, he 
changed his course a bit, in order to find an easier 
route, and perhaps come upon the camp from 
behind. 

For tenderfeet the five boys^seemed to be mak- 
ing a pretty clever advance. They could now 
see a man stretched at full length near the fire, as 
if sleeping; though now and then a puff of smoke 
told that he was only taking it easy, and indulg- 
ing in his pipe. 

A little farther and they glimpsed the se^jond 
fellow. He towered up like a house, being all 
of six foot-three, and bulky in proportion. But 
then, as Jack well knew, a man is only a man, no 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


221 


matter what his size, when he is looking into the 
muzzle of a rifle and modern repeating shotgun. 
And even this giant might well quail when 
brought to book. 

The boys were now creeping through the 
bushes, and getting very close in. All the while 
Jack was eagerly trying to see what had become 
of Clarence. At first he could discover nothing 
of the other; and became chilled with a deadly 
fear that these cowards might have gone to ex- 
tremes; though he could hardly bring himseh 
to really believe it. 

George was the first to find out what had been 
done with the prisoner. 

“I see him,^’ he whispered close to Jack^s ear. 
^^He^s lying on the ground over by that stump of 
a tree.^’ 

Guided by these directions Jack was enabled 
to also place Clarence. There was certainly a 
figure lying there, and it must be the companion 
of Joe; for the latter had said there were only 
two of the scoundrels. 

Jack bobbed his head back in a hurry, after 
he had made this little survey of the enemy^s 
camp. For the big man had arisen to his feet, 
and started toward the very place where Clar- 
ence lay. 

^^Be ready!’’ muttered Jack, seeming to under- 
stand that the crisis must now be very close 
upon them. 


222 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Arriving at the spot, the giant bent over, and 
they could hear his growl as he spoke harshly: 

^^Made up yer mind yet, younker? Will ye 
write thet letter jest as we tell ye, and let a 
couple o^ honest though unfortunit men have a 
square chanct to rake in a leetle pile? Speak 
up, now, d^ye hear?” 

He accompanied his words by a brutal kick 
that gave Jack and George a spasm of anger. 

^^No! no! no!” shouted the obstinate Clarence, 
still undismayed; for his pluck was the best part 
of him, and had always been. 

At that the big brute raised his heavy boot 
with ugly words. It was doubtless his full in- 
tention to dash it against the side of the helpless 
boy, regardless as to what the consequences 
might be. But he changed his mind. 

wouldn’t do that if I were you, mister!” 
said Jack, in an even, clear voice, as he and 
George suddenly stood up in full sight. 

He had covered the giant with his gun, and 
George was ready to do the same for the man 
with the pipe the instant he bounded to his feet. 

^^Stand still, both of you, or we’ll shoot!” 
George shouted. 

This was a signal for the other three who were 
behind, and they suddenly made their appear- 
ance, waving’ their crude weapons menacingly. 

The two men were apparently taken com- 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


223 


pletely by surprise. They saw that the tables had 
been suddenly turned. And somehow, although 
these were only boys who confronted them, there 
was a grim air of business about those unwaver- 
ing guns that neither of the cowards fancied at 
all. 

Jack had not known what the result was going 
to be. He hardly anticipated that the men 
would dare attack them in the face of those 
weapons. And he had arranged with George 
that should they show signs of flight, no one was 
to raise a hand to prevent them. 

When therefore the giant gave vent to a whoop 
and turning, galloped toward the water’s edge, 
neither of the boys pulled trigger; though Josh 
let out a shout as though he might be chasing 
after; which he was not, all the same, for he did 
not fancy the looks of either of the rascals. 

The second man took to his heels also, dodging 
to the right and left in a ridiculous manner, as if 
expecting every second to hear the crash of 
Jack’s gun, and feel himself being peppered with 
bird shot. i 

They could be seen tumbling madly into their 
rowboat, and pushing out on the lake with all 
possible speed. 

''Let ’em go!” said Josh, grandly, as he replac-^ 
ed his bread knife in the leather scabbard he had 
made for it, so as to avoid any chance of cutting^ 


224 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


his fingers by coming in contact with its keen 
edge, when rummaging in the locker aboard the 
Wireless, where the cooking things were kept. 

Jack was already stooping over Clarence, and 
in a jiffy had severed the cords that bound him 
hand and foot. 

awful glad you came. Jack!” said the 
other weakly. believe that coward would 
have killed me if I didn’t give in to him.” 

^^Here, work your arms and legs as fast as 
you can, Clarence!” said George. “We’ve got 
to get out of this in a hurry now, or they might 
even find the Comfort, and run away with her. 
You’re going back with us, you know. Joe got 
in and told us.” 

The two men having put what they thought 
a safe distance between themselves and the boys, 
began to shout insulting remarks, and make the 
most terrible threats. Although they could not 
be seen out on the lake, it was not so difficult to 
know in what quarter they chanced to be at the 
time. 

Angered by the insults, as well as the cruel 
manner in which they had treated Clarence and 
Joe, George picked up the shot gun which Jack 
had lain down for a minute, and before any one 
could stop him had discharged it. 

That some of the many little lead pellets in 
that shell had stung the profane scoundrels in the 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


225 


rowboat, the boys understood from the howl that 
arose, followed by the splashing of oars, telling 
that they were pulhng madly away before a 
second shot added to their troubles. 

^^Now come with us, Clarence,^’ said Jack. 

They did not have to be so careful making their 
way back to where they had left the steady 
going old Comfort And once aboard, the re- 
turn trip was quickly accomplished. In camp 
Clarence was soon given all the food and coffee 
he could manage; and he professed himself as 
very grateful for all the motor boat boys had 
done for him. 

Since his speed boat had met with so tragic 
an end, Clarence declared that he had had enough 
of cruising, and would start straight home as 
soon as they reached the Soo, if the boys would 
lend them enough money to buy tickets — ^which 
programme he and Joe carried out; nor were our 
six friends at all sorry to see them vanish from 
view. 

Leaving the Soo, Jack and his chums spent al- 
most two weeks upon the crooked St. Mary^s 
river, camping, fishing and enjoying themselves 
to the utmost. But never did they touch on 
Canadian soil but that poor Buster seemed to be 
dreadfully uneasy, sticking close to the fire, and 
breathing a sigh of genuine relief when once more 
afloat, with no unpleasant reminders wafted after 
them. 


226 


MOTOR BOAT BOYS 


Jack and Nick had made up a little programme 
for themselves, which they sprung upon their 
comrades later, when leaving the three boats at 
Milwaukee to be sent by rail to the home town 
on the Upper Mississippi. 

This was nothing more nor less than saying 
good-bye to the rest of the boys in Milwaukee, 
and taking a little run down to Chicago, ^To 
see the sights, you know,’^ as Nick cleverly put 
it. But everybody guessed that the greatest 
attraction which all Chicago could boast for the 
deserters would be found within the borders of 
Oak Park, and under the roof of the banker, Mr. 
Roland Andrews. 

And so the great cruise had finally come to an 
end. Looking back the boys found no reason 
to regret their course. True, there might be a 
number of incidents that would stand out for 
a long time with a bit of harshness; but time 
mellows all such things; and even Buster would 
laugh just as heartily as any of his chums when 
his adventure with the bull, or the pretty Canada 
pussy-cat, were mentioned. 

They had had such a glorious time of it that 
undoubtedly other trips must be talked over 
during the coming winter; and with the coming 
of the holiday season once again the motor boat 
boys would be found ready to set out again on 
their search for new adventures. 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


227 


Jocko went home with George and was a 
source of considerable costly amusement in the 
Rollins’ home. 

We shall surely hope and expect to continue 
the pleasant acquaintance formed in the pages 
of the several books already published; and in 
new fields accompany Jack Stormways and his 
chums, with their gallant little boats, through 
other scenes, where true American pluck and 
endurance, such as they have always shown, 
must carry them through all perils to success. 

THE END 


BERENICK 


Dioebant mihi sodales, si sepnlchrmn amios yidtareai, OOXM meat 
oliqaam tulam fore levatas.— ZaiaU 

Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is mnlti- 
form. Orerreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its 
hues are as various as the hues of that arch — as distinct too, 
yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as 
the rainbow ! How is it that from beauty I have derived a 
type of unloveliness ? — from the covenant of peace, a simile of 
sorrow ? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, 
in fact, out of joy is sorrow bom. Either the memory of past 
bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have 
their origin in the ecstasies which might have been. 

My baptismal name is Egseus ; that of my family I will not 
mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-hon- 
ored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has 
been called a race of visionaries ; and in many striking partic- 
ulars — in the character of the family mansion, in the frescos 
of the chief saloon, in the tapestries of the dormitories, in 
the chiselling of some buttresses in the armory, but more es- 
pecially in the gallery of antique paintings, in the fashion of 
the library chamber, and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature 
of the library’s contents — there is more than sufficient evidence 
to warrant the belief. 

The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that 
chamber, and with its volumes — of which latter I will say no 
more. Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is 
mere idleness to say that I had not lived before — that the 
soul has no previous existence. You deny it ? Let us not ar- 
gue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince 
There is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms, of spiritual 
jmd meaning eyes, of sounds musical vet sad ; a remembrance 


BERENICE. 


69 


which will not be excluded ; a memory like a shadow — vague, 
variable, indefinite, unsteady ; and like a shadow, too, in the 
impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunHght of my 
reason shall exist. 

In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long 
night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into 
the very regions of fairy land — into a palace of imagination, 
into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition— 
it is not singular that I gazed ai’ound me with a startled and 
ardent eye — that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and 
dissipated my youth in revery ; but it is singular, that, as years 
rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the 
mansion of my fathers, it is wonderful what stagnation there 
feu upon the springs of my life — wonderful how total an in* 
version took place in the character of my commonest thought. 
The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as vis- 
ions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, 
in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in 
very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself. 


Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in 
my paternal haUs. Yet differently we grew — I, iU of health, 
and buried in gloom — she, agile, graceful, and overflowing 
with energy ; hers the ramble on the hill-side — mine, the 
studies of the cloister ; I, living within my own heart, and ad- 
dicted, body and soul, to the most intense and painful medi- 
tation — she, roaming carelessly through life, vsdth no thought 
of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven- 
winged houra Berenice ! — I call upon her name — Berenice ! 
and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous 
recoUections are startled at the sound ! Ah, vividly is her 
image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heart- 
edness and joy! Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh, 
sylph amid the shrubberies of Amheim ! Oh, Naiad among 
its fountains ! And then — then all is mystery and terror, and 
a tale which should not be told. Disease — a fatal disease, fell 
like the simoon upon her frame ; and, even while I gazed upon 
her, the spirit of change swept over her, peiwading her mind, 
her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most sub- 
tle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person ! 
Alas ! the destroyer came and went ! and the victim — where 
is she ? I knew her not — or knew her no longer as Berenice ! 


70 


BERBNIOK 


Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced bj 
that fatal and primary one which effected a revolution of so 
horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin, 
may be mentioned as the most distressing and obstinate in its 
nature, a species of epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in 
trance itself — trance very nearly resembling positive dissolu- 
tion, and from which her manner of recovery was, in most in- 
stances, startlingly abrupt. In the meantime, my own disease 
— for I have been told that I should call it by no other appel- 
lation — my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and as- 
sumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraor- 
dinary form — hourly and momentarily gaining vigor — and at 
length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible ascend- 
ency. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a 
morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in meta- 
physical science termed the attentive. It is more than prob- 
able that I am not understood ; but I fear, indeed, that it is in 
no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely gen- 
eral reader, an adequate, idea of that nervous intensity of in- 
terest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to 
speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the con- 
templation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe. 

To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riv- 
eted to some frivolous device on the margin or in the typo- 
graphy of a book ; to become absorbed, for the better part of 
a summer’s day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the 
tapestry or upon the floor ; to lose myself, for an entire night, 
in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a 
fire ; to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower ; 
to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until the sound, 
by dint of frequent repetition ceased to convey any idea what- 
ever to the mind ; to lose all sense of motion or physical exist- 
ence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and ob- 
stinately persevered in : such were a few of the most common 
and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the 
mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but cer- 
tainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explana- 
tion. 

Yet let me not be misapprehended. The undue, earnest, 
and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own 
nature frivolous, must not be confounded in character with 
that mminating propensity common to all mankind, and more 
especially induhsted in by persons of ardent imagination. It 


BERENICE. 


71 


was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extreme con- 
dition, or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily and 
essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the 
dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually 
^ot frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wil- 
derness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, un- 
til, at the conclusion of a day-dream often replete with luxury, 
he finds the incitamentum, or first cause of his musings, entirely 
vanished and forgotten. In my case, the primary object was 
invariably fnvolous, although assuming, through the medium 
of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. 
Few deductions, if any, were made ; and those few pertina- 
ciously returning in upon the original object as a centre. The 
meditations were never pleasurable ; and, at the termination 
of the revery, the first cause, so far from being out of sight, 
had attained that supematurally exaggerated interest which 
was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the 
powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as 
I have said before, the attentive, and are, with the day-dreamer, 
the speculative. 

My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to 
irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in 
their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the charac- 
teristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, 
among others, the treatise of the noble Italian, Coelius Secun- 
dus Curio, “ De Amplitudine Beati Regni Dei ; ” St. Austin’s 
great work, “ The City of God and Tertullian’s “ jDe Came 
Christi,” in which the paradoxical sentence, “ Mortuus est Dei 
filius ; credibile est quia ineptum est ; et sepultus resurrexit / 
cert urn est quia impossibile est,*' occupied my undivided time, 
for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation. 

Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by 
trivial things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag 
spoken of by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting 
the attacks of human violence, and the fiercer fury of the 
waters and the winds, trembled only to the touch of the flower 
called Asphodel And although, to a careless thinker, it 
might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the alteration pro- 
duced by her unhappy malady, in the moral condition of Ber- 
enice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that 
intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at 
some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree 
the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, 


72 


BERENICE. 


indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total 
wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fail to ponder, fre- 
quently and bitterly, upon the wonder-working means by 
w^hich so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought 
to pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy 
of my disease, and were such as would have occurred, under 
similar circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True 
to its own character, my disorder revelled in the less impor- 
tant but more starthng changes wrought in the physical frame 
of Berenice — in the singular and most appalling distortion of 
^her personal identity. 

During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most 
surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my 
existence, feelings with me had necer been of the heart, and 
my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of 
the early morning — among the trellised shadows of the forest 
at noonday — and in the silence of my library at night — she 
had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her — not as the living 
and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream ; not 
as a being of the earth; earthy, but as the abstraction of such 
a being ; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze ; not as an 
object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although 
desultory speculation. And now — now I shuddered in her 
presence, and grew pale at her approach ; yet, bitterly lament- 
ing her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that 
she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to 
her of marriage. 

And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, 
when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year — one of 
those imseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the 
nurse of the beautiful Halcyon,* — I sat (and sat, as I thought, 
alone), in the inner apartment of the library. But, uplifting 
my eyes, I saw that Berenice stood before me. 

Was it my own excited imagination — or the misty influence 
of the atmosphere — or the uncertain twilight of the chamber 
— or the gray draperies which fell around her figure — that 
caused in it so vacillating and indistinct an outline ? I could 
not tell. She spoke no word ; and I — not for worlds could 
I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame ; 
a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me ; a consuming 

* For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven days of 
warmth, men have called this clement and temperate time the nurse of 
the beautiful Halcyon. — Simonides. 


BERENICE. 




curiosity pervaded my soul ; and, sinking back upon the chair, 
I remained for some time breathless and motioidess, with my 
eyes riveted upon her person. Alas I its emaciation was ex- 
cessive, and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any 
single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell 
upon the face. 

The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid f 
and the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed 
the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid 
yeUow, and jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, 
with the reigning melancholy of her countenance. The eyes 
were lifeless, and lustreless, and seemingly pupilless, and I 
shrank involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contempla- 
tion of the thin and shrunken hps. They parted ; and in a 
smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed Berenice 
disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God that 
I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had died I 


The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I 
found that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But 
from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas ! de- 
parted, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly 
spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck on their surface — not a 
shade on their enamel — not an indenture in their edges — but 
what that brief period of her smile had sufficed to brand in 
upon my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally 
than I beheld them then. The teeth ! — the teeth ! — they were 
here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably be- 
fore me ; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale 
lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first 
terrible development. Then came the fuU fury of my mono* 
mania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresisti- 
ble influence. In the multiplied objects of the eternal world 
I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with 
a frenzied desire. All other matters and all different interests 
became absorbed in their single contemplation. They — they 
alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole 
individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held 
them in every light I turned them in every attitude. I sur- 
veyed their characteristics .1 dwelt upon their peculiarities. 
I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon the al- 
teration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them, 


74 


BERENICE, 


in imagination, a sensitive and sentient power, and, even when 
unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of 
Madamoiselle SaUe it has been well said, “ Que tons ses pas 
etaient des sentiments” and of Berenice I more seriously be- 
lieved que tons ses dents etaient des idees. Des idees f — ah, here 
was the idiotic thought that destroyed me ! Des idees f — ah, 
therefore it was that I coveted them so madly ! I felt that 
their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giv- 
ing me back to reason. 

And the evening closed in upon me thus — and then the 
darkness came, and tarried, and went — and the day again 
dawned — and the mists of a second night were now gathering 
around — and still I sat motionless in that solitary room — and 
still I sat buried in meditation — and still the phantasma of 
the teeth maintained its terrible ascendency, as, with the 
most vivid and hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the 
changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At length 
there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dis- 
may ; and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of 
troubled voices, intermingled with many low moanings of 
sorrow or of pain. I arose from my seat, and throwing open 
one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the ante- 
chamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that 
Berenice was — no more ! She had been seized with epilepsy 
in the early morning, and now, at the closing of the night, 
the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations 
for the burial were completed. 


I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there 
alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused 
and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and 
I was well aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice 
had been interred. But of that dreary period which inter- 
Tened I had no positive, at least no definite comprehension. 
Yet its memory was replete with horror — horror more horri- 
ble from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambigu- 
ity. It was a fearful page in the record of my existence, 
written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible 
recollections. I strived to decipher them, but in vain ; while 
ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill 
nnd piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in 
my ears. I had done a deed — what was it ? I asked myself 


BERENICE. 75 

the question and the whispering echoes of the chamber 

answered me, — “ Nhat was it f ** 

On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a 
little box. It wa ^ of no remarkable character, and I had seen 
it frequently before, for it was the property of the family 
physician ; but l^w came it there, upon my table, and why 
did I shudder in regarding it ? These things were in no 
manner to be ac^unted for, and my eyes at length dropped 
to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored 
therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of 
the poet Ebn Z®iat: — Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum 
amicce visitarem, euros meas aliquantulum fore levatas.*’ Why, 
then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect them- 
selves on end, hi«id the blood of my body become congealed 
within my veins ? 

There came a light tap at the library door— and, pale as 
the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His 
looks were wi^a with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice 
tremulous, hnskv, and very low. "VHiat said he? — some 
broken sentences I heard. He told me of a wild cry disturb- 
ing the silence of the night — of the gathering together of the 
household — of a search in the direction of the sound ; and 
then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me 
of a violated grave — of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still 
breathing — still palpitating — still alive! 

He pointed to my garments ; they were muddy and clotted 
with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand : 
it was indented with the impress of human nails. He di- 
rected my attention to some object against the wall. I looked 
at it lor some minutes : it was a spade. With a shriek I 
bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it 
But 1 could not force it open ; and, in my tremor, it slipped 
from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces ; and 
from it, with a rattling sound, there roUed out some instru- 
ments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small 
white, and ivory-looking substances that were scattered tc 
and fro about the fioor. 


ELEONORA 


Sab conservatione formae specificae salva anima. 

Raymond LvJQ/y. 

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor 
passion. Men have called me mad ; but the question is not 
yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelli- 
gence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is 
profound — does not spring from disease of thought — from 
moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. 
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which 
escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions 
they obtain ghmpses of eternity, and thrill, in wal^g, to find 
that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In 
snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of 
good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They 
penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast 
ocean of the “ light ineffable ; ” and again, like the adventures 
of the Nubian geographer, **agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, 
quid in eo esset exploraturi” 

We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that 
there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence — the 
condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belong- 
ing to the memory of events forming the first epoch of njy 
life — and a condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to 
the present, and to the recollection of what constitutes the 
second great era of my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of 
the earlier period, believe ; and to what I may relate of the later 
time, give only such credit as may seem due ; or doubt it 
altogether ; or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its rid- 
dle the (Edipus. 

She whom I loved in youtn, and of whom I now pen 
calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole 


ELEONORA. 


77 


daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. 
Eleonora was the name of my cousin. We had always dwelled 
together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many- 
Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came upon that 
vale ; for it lay far away up among a range of giant hills that 
hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunhght from 
its sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its vicinity; 
and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting back, 
with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and 
of crushing to death the glories of many miUions of fragrant 
flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing 
of the world without the valley, — I, and my cousin, and hei 
mother. 

From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper 
end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and 
deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora ; and, 
winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at 
length, through a shadowy gorge, among hiUs still dimmer 
than those whence it had issued. We called it the ‘‘ Kiver of 
Silence ; ” for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its 
flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wan- 
dered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to 
gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in 
a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on 
gloriously forever. 

The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets 
that glide through devious ways into its channel, as well as 
the spaces that extended from the margins away down into 
the depths of the streams until they reached the bed of peb- 
bles at the bottom — these spots, not less than the whole sur- 
face of the valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled 
it in, were carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, 
perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled 
throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the 
])urple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding 
beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones of the love and of 
the glory of God. 

And, here and there, m groves about this grass, like wilder- 
nesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender 
stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward the 
light that peered at not>o-day into the centre of the vaUey. 
Their bark was speckled w^th the vivid alternate splendor of 
ebony and silver, and was soioother than all save the cheeks 


78 


ELEONORA. 


of Eleonora ; so, that but for the briUiant green of the huge 
leaves that spread from their summits in long, tremulous Hues, 
dallying with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant 
serpents of Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun. 

Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I 
with Eleonora before love entered within our hearts. It wafl 
one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, ant^ 
the fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other’s em^ 
brace, beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within 
the waters of the Kiver of Silence at our images therein. W# 
spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day ; and om 
words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We 
had drawn the god Eros from that wave, and now we felt that 
he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. 
The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race, 
came thronging with the fancies for which they had been 
equally noted, and together breathed a delirious bhss over 
the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all 
things. Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burst out upon 
the trees where no flowers had been known before. The tints 
of the green carpet deepened ; and when, one by one, the 
white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of them, 
ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our 
paths: for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay- 
glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The 
golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of 
which issued, little by Httle, a murmm’ that swelled, at length 
into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of 
.Eolus — sweeter than aU save the voice of Eleonora. And 
now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in 
the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in 
crimson and gold, and settling in peace above us, sank, day 
by day, lower and lower, imtil its edges rested upon the tops 
of the mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence 
and shutting us up, as if forever, within a, magic prison-house 
of grandeur and of glory. 

The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim ; but 
she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she 
had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of 
love which animated her heart, and she examined with me its 
inmost recesses as we walked together in the Valley of the 
Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the mighty changes 
which had lately taken place therein. 


ELEONORA. 


79 


At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad 
change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt 
only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all 
our converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the 
same images are found occurring, again and again, in every 
impressive variation of phrase. 

She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom 
— that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in 
loveliness only to die ; but the terrors of the grave to her, lay 
solely in a consideration which she revealed to me, one even- 
ing at twilight, by the banks of the Kiver of Silence. She 
gi'ieved to think that, having entombed her in the Valley of 
the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit forever its happy re- 
cesses, transferring the love which now was so passionately 
her own to some maiden of the outer and every-day world. 
And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of 
Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to heaven, that 
I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of 
Earth — that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear 
memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which 
she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Euler of the 
XJniveise to witness the pious solemnity- of my vow. And the 
curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion, 
should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty 
the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to 
make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora 
grew brighter at my words ; and she sighed as if a deadly 
burthen had been taken from her breast ; and she trembled 
and very bitterly wept ; but she made acceptance of the 
vow (for what was she but a child ?), and it made easy to her 
the bed of her death. And she said to me, not many days 
afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had done 
for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in that 
spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her, return 
to me visibly in the watches of the night ; but, if this thing 
were, indeed, beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that 
she would, at least, give me frequent indications of her pres- 
ence ; sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air 
which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. 
And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her in- 
nocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own. 

Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier 
in Time’s path, formed by the death of my beloved, and pro- 


80 


ELEONORA, 


ceed with the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow 
gathers over my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of 
the record. But let me on — Years dragged themselves along 
heavily, and still I dwelled within the Valley of the Many- 
Colored Grass ; but a second change had come upon all 
things. The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the 
trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet 
faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered 
away ; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, 
dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever 
encumbered with dew. And Life departed fi’om our paths \ 
for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage 
before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with afl 
the gay-glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And 
the golden and silver flsh swam down through the gorge at 
the lower end of our domain and bedecked the sweet river 
never again. And the lulling melody that had been softer 
than the wind-harp of ^olus, and more divine than all save 
the voice of Eleonora, it died little by little away, in murmurs 
growing lower and lower, until the stream returned, at length, 
utterly, into the solemnity of its original silence. And then, 
lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and, abandoning the tops 
of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back into the 
regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and 
gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. 

Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten ; for I 
heard the soimds of the swinging of the censers of the angels ; 
and streams of a holy perfume floated ever and ever about the 
valley ; and at lone hours, when my heart beat heavily, the 
winds that bathed 'my brow came unto me laden with soft 
sighs ; and indistinct murmurs filled often the night air ; and 
once — oh, but once only ! I was awakened from a slumber, 
like the slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips 
upon my own. 

But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. 
I longed for the love which had before been filled to overflow- 
ing. At length the valley pained me through its memories of 
Eleonora, and I left it forever for the vanities and the turbu- 
lent triumphs of the world. 


I found myself within a strange city, where all things might 
have served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had 


ELEONORA 


81 


dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. 
The pomps and pageantries of a stately court, and the mad 
clangor of arms, and the radiant lovehness of woman, bewil- 
dered and intoxicated my brain. But as yet my soul had 
proved true to its vows, and the indications of the presence of 
Eleonora were stiU given me in the silent hours of the night. 
Suddenly, these manifestations ceased ; and the world grew 
dark before mine eyes ; and I stood aghast at the burn- 
ing thoughts which possessed — at the terrible temptations 
whuch beset me ; for there came from some far, far distant and 
imknown land, into the gay court of the king I served, a 
maiden to whose beauty my whole recreant heart yielded at 
once — at whose footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in 
the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What 
indeed was my passion for the young girl of the valley in com- 
parison with the fervor, and the delmum, and the spirit-lift- 
ing ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole 
soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde ? — Oh, 
bright was the seraph Ermengarde ! and in that knowledge I 
had room for none other. — Oh, divine was the angel Ermen- 
garde ! and as I looked down into the depths of her memorial 
eyes, I thought only of them — and of her. 

I wedded ; — nor dreaded the curse I had invoked ; and its 
bitterness was not visited upon me. And once — but once 
again in the silence of the night, there came through my lat- 
tice the soft sighs which had forsaken me ; and they modelled 
themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying — 

“ Sleep in peace ! — for the Spirit of Love reigneth and 
ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Er- 
mengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shaU be made 
known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora, ’ 

9 


LIGEIA 


And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. WTio knoweth the mys- 
teries of the will, with its vigor ? For God is hut a great will pervad- 
ing all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself 
to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness 
of his feeble will. Joseph GlanviU. 

I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or even pre- 
cisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. 
Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble 
through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring 
these points to mind, because, in truth, the character of my 
beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid caste of 
beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low 
musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so 
steadily and stealthily progressive, that they have been un- 
noticed and unknown. Yet I believe that I met her first and 
most frequently in some large, old, decaying city near the 
Rhine. Of her family — I have surely heard her speak. That 
it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia ! 
Ligeia ! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else 
adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by ? 
that sweet word alone — by Ligeia — that I bring before mine 
eyes in fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, 
while I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never 
known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my 
betrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and 
finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the 
part of my Ligeia ? or was it a test of my strength of affec- 
tion, that I should institute no inquiries upon this point ? or 
was it rather a caprice of my own — a wildly romantic offering 
on the shrine of the most passionate devotion ? I but indis- 
tinctly recall the fact itself — what wonder that I have utterly 
forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it? 
And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Romance — if 


LIOEIA. 


83 


ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet of idola- 
trous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, 
then most surely she presided over mine. 

There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory 
fails me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was 
tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. 
I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, 
of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elas- 
ticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. 
I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study, 
save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed 
her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no 
maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium- 
dream — an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine 
than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering 
souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not 
of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to 
worship in the classical labors of the heathen. “ There is no 
exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly 
of all the forms and genera of beauty, “ without some strange^ 
ness in the proportion.” Yet, although I saw that the features 
of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity — although I per- 
ceived that her loveliness was indeed “exquisite,” and felt 
that there was much of “strangeness ” pervading it, yet I have 
tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my 
own perception of “ the strange.” I examined the contour of 
the lofty and pale forehead — it was faultless — how cold in- 
deed that word when applied to a majesty so divine ! — the 
skin riv allin g the purest ivory, the commanding extent and 
repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the tem- 
ples ; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and 
naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the 
Homeric epithet, “ hyacinthine ! ” I looked at the delicate 
outlines of the nose — and nowhere but in the graceful medal- 
lions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. 
There were the same luxurious smoothness of surface, the same 
scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same har- 
moniously-curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded 
the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things 
heavenly — the magnificent turn of the short upper lip — the 
soft, voluptuous slumber of the under — the dimples which 
spoHed, and the color which spoke — the teeth glancing back, 
with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of the holy light 


LIGEIA. 


which fell upon them in her serene and placid, yet most ex* 
ultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of 
the chm — and here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, 
the softness and the majesty, the fulness and the spirituality, of 
the Greek — the contour which the god Apollo rerealed but in 
a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian. And then I 
peered into the large eyes of Ligeia. 

For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It 
might have been, too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the 
secret to which Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must 
believe, far larger than the ordinary eyes of our own race. 
They were even fuller than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of 
the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at in- 
tervals — in moments of intense excitement — that this pecu- 
liarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And 
at such moments was her beauty — in my heated fancy thus it 
appeared perhaps — the beauty of beings either above or apart 
from the earth — the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the 
Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black, 
and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The 
brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The 
“ strangeness,” however, which I found in the eyes, was of a 
nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or the bril- 
liancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to the 
expression. Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose vast 
latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so much 
of the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia I How 
for long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, 
through the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom 
it ! What was it — that something more profound than the 
well of Democritus — which lay far within the pupils of my 
beloved ? What %ms it ? I was possessed with a passion to 
discover. Those eyes ! those large, those shining, those di- 
vine orbs ! they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to 
them devoutest of astrologers. 

There is no point, among the many incomprehensible 
anomalies of science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than 
the fact — never, I believe, noticed in the schools — that in our 
endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we 
often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, 
without being able in the end, to remember. And thus how 
frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia’s eyes, have I felt 
approaching the full knowledge of their expression — felt it 


LIQEIA. 


85 


approaching — yet not quite be mine — and so at length en- 
tirely depart ! And (strange, oh strangest mystery of all !) I 
foimd, in the commonest objects of the universe, a circle of 
analogies to that expression. I mean to say that, subse- 
quently to the period when Ligeia’s beauty passed into my 
spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many 
existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt 
always around, within me, by her large and luminous orbs. 
Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or 
even steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, some- 
times in the survey of a rapidly-growing vine — in the contem- 
plation of a moth, a buttei^y, a chrysalis, a stream of running 
water. I have felt it in the ocean ; in the falling of a meteor. 
I have felt it in the glances of unusually aged people. And 
there are one or two stars in heaven — (one especially, a star 
of the sixth magnitude, double and changeable, to be found 
near the large star in Lyra), in a telescopic scrutiny of which 
I have been made aware of the feelings. I have been filled 
with it by certain sounds from stringed instruments, and 
not unfrequently by passages from books. Among innumer- 
able other instances, I well remember something in a volume 
of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely from its quaintness 
— who shall say ?) never failed to inspire me with the senti- 
ment : “And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who 
knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God 
is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its in- 
tentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto 
death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble 
win” 

Length of years and subsequent reflection, have enabled 
me to trace, indeed, some remote connection between this 
passage in the English moralist and a portion of the character 
of Ligeia. An intensity in thought, action, or speech, was 
possibly, in her, a result, or at least an index, of that gigantic 
volition which, during our long intercourse, failed to give 
other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of all 
the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, 
the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the 
tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I 
could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of 
those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me — by 
the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness, and 
placidity of her very low voice — and by the fierce energy (ren- 


86 


LIOEIA. 


dered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utter* 
ance), of the wild words which she habitually uttered. 

I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia : it was immense — 
such as I have never known in woman. In the classical 
tongues was she deeply proficient, and as far as my own ac- 
quaintance extended in regard to the modern dialects of Eu- 
rope, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon any 
theme of the most admired, because simply the most abstruse 
of the boasted erudition of the academy, have I ever found 
Ligeia at fault ? How singularly — how thrillingly, this one 
point in the nature of my wife has forced itself, at this late 
period only, upon my attention ! I said her knowledge was 
such as I have never known in woman — but where breathes 
the man who has traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas 
of moral, physical, and mathematical science ? I saw not 
then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions of Li- 
geia were gigantic, were astoimding ; yet I was sufi&ciently 
aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a child- 
like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world of 
metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied 
during the earher years of our marriage. With how vast a 
triumph — with how vivid a delight — with how much of all that 
is ethereal in hope — did I feel^ as she bent over me in studies 
but little sought— but less known — that delicious vista by slow 
degrees expanding before me, down whose long, gorgeous, 
and all untrodden path, I might at length pass onward to the 
goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden ! 

How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, 
after some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take 
wings to themselves and fly away ! Without Ligeia I was but 
as a child groping benighted. Her presence, her readings 
alone, rendered vividly luminous the many mysteries of the 
transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting the 
radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew 
duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less 
and less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia 
grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too — too glorious efful- 
gence ; the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen hue 
of the grave ; and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead 
swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gen- 
tle emotion. I saw that she must die — and I struggled des- 
perately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of 
the passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more en- 


LIOEIA. 


87 


ergetic than my own. There had been much in her stem na- 
ture to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would 
have come without its terrors ; but not so. Words are impo- 
tent to convey any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with 
which she wrestled with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish 
at the pitiable spectacle. I would have soothed — I would have 
reasoned ; but, in the intensity of her wild desire for hfe— for 
hfe — hut for life — solace and reason were alike the uttermost 
of folly. Yet not until the last instance, amid the most con- 
vulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken the external 
placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle — grew 
more low — yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild mean- 
ing of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I heark- 
ened, entranced, to a melody more than mortal — to assump- 
tions and aspirations which mortality had never before known. 

That she loved me I should not have doubted : and I might 
have been easily aware that, in a bosom such as her’s, love 
would have reigned no ordinary passion. But in death csily, 
was I fully impressed with the strength of her affection. For 
long hours, detaining my hand, would she pore out before me 
the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devo- 
tion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so 
blessed by such confessions ? — how had I deserved to be so 
cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her mak- 
ing them? But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. 
Let me say only, that in Ligeia’s more than womanly aban- 
donment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily be- 
stowed, I at length recognized the principle of her longing, 
with so wildly earnest a desire, for the life which was now flee- 
ing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing — it is this eager 
vehemence of desire for hfe — hut for hfe — that I have no power 
to portray — no utterance capable of expressing. 

At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning 
me, peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses 
composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. 
They were these : — 

Lo ! ’tis a gala night 
Within the lonesome latter years I 
An angel throng, hewinged, bedight 
In veils, and drowned in tears, 

Sit in a theatre, to see 
A play of hopes and fears, 

While the orchestra breathes fitfully 
The music of the spheres. 


8S 


LIQEIA. 


Mimes, in the form of God on high, 

Mutter and mumble low, 

And hither and thither fly ; 

Mere puppets they, who come and go 
At bidding of vast formless things 
That shift the scenery to aud fro. 

Flapping from out their condor wings 
Invisible VV"o ! 

That motley drama ! — oh, be sure 
It shall not be forgot ! 

With its Phantom chased for evermore, 

By a crowd that seize it not, 

Through a circle that ever returneth in 
To the self-same spot ; 

And much of Madness, and more of Sin 
And horror, the soul of the plot 1 

But see, amid the mimic rout 
A crawling shape intrude ! 

A blood-red thing that writhes from out 
The scenic solitude ! 

It writhes !— it writhes! — with mortal pangs 
The mimes become its food. 

And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs 
In human gore imbued. 

Out — out are the lights — out all I 
And over each quivering form. 

The curtain, a funeral pall, 

Comes down with the rush of a storm— 

And the angels, all pallid and wan, 

' Uprising, unveiling, affirm 

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,” 

And its hero, the conqueror Worm. 

“ O God ! ” half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and ex- 
tending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made 
an end of these lines — “ O God ! O Divine Father ! — shall 
these things be undeviatingly so ? — shall this conqueror be not 
once conquered ? Are we not part and parcel in Thee ? Who 
— who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor ? Man 
doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save 
only through the weakness of his feeble will.” 

And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her 
white arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. 
And as she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with 
them a low murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear, 
and distinguished, again, the concluding words of the passage 


LIQEIA. 


89 


in Glanrill : — “ Man doth not yield him to the angels^ nor unto 
death utterly ^ save only through the weakness of his feeble will.'* 

She died : and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, 
could no longer endui’e the lonely desolation of my dweUing 
in the dim and decaying city by the Khine. I had no lack of 
what the world calls wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, 
very far more, than ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. After 
a few months, therefore, of weary and aimless wandering, I 
purchased, and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall 
not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions 
of fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the 
building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many 
melancholy and time-honored memories connected with both, 
had much in unison with the feehngs of utter abandonment 
which had driven me into that remote and unsocial region of 
the country. Yet although the external abbey, with its verdant 
decay hanging about it, suffered but little alteration, I gave 
way, with a child-hke perversity, and perchance with a faint 
hope of alleviating my sorrows, to a display of more than regal 
magnificence within. For such follies, even in childhood, I 
had imbibed a taste, and now they came back to me as if in 
the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even of incipient 
madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and fan- 
tastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild 
cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets 
of tufted gold ! I had become a bounden slave in the trammels 
of opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a coloring 
from my dreams. But these absurdities I must not pause to 
detail Let me speak only of that one chamber, ever accursed, 
whither in a moment of mental alienation, I led from the altar 
as my bride — as the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia — the 
fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady KowenaTrevanion, of Tremaine. 

There is no individual portion of the architecture and dec- 
oration of that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before 
me. Where were the souls of the haughty family of the bride, 
when, through thirst of gold, they permitted to pass the 
threshold of an apartment so bedecked, a maiden and a daugh- 
ter so beloved ? I have said, that I minutely remember the 
details of the chamber — yet I am sadly forgetful on topics of 
deep moment ; and here there was no system, no keeping, in 
the fantastic display, to take hold upon the memory. The 
room lay in a high turret of the castellated abbey, was pen- 
tagonal in shape, and of capacious size. Occupying the whole 


90 


LIQEIA 


southern face of the pentagon was the sole window — an im-i 
mense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice — a single pane, 
and tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun 
or moon passing through it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the 
objects within. Over the upper portion of this huge window, 
extended the trelhs-work of an aged vine, which clambered 
up the massy walls of the turret. The ceiling, of gloomy-look- 
ing oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted 
with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi- 
Oothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most central re- 
cess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain 
of gold with long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Sar- 
acenic in pattern, and with many perforations so contrived 
that there writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a 
serpent vitahty, a continual succession of pai’ti-colored fires. 

Some few ottomans aud golden candelabra, of Eastern fig- 
ure, were in various stations about ; and there was the couch, 
too — the bridal couch — of an Indian model, and low, and 
sculptured of solid ebony, with a pall-like canopy above. In 
each of the angles of the chamber stood on end a gigantic sar- 
cophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings over 
against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculp- 
ture. But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas ! the chief 
phantasy of all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height — even un- 
proportionately so — were hung from summit to foot, in vast 
folds, with a heavy and massive-looking tapestry — tapestry of 
a material which was found alike as a carpet on the floor, as a 
covering for the ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy for 
the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the curtains which 
partially shaded the window. The material was the richest 
cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular intervals, 
vrith arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and wrought 
upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty black. But these 
figures partook of the true character of the arabesque only 
when regarded from, a single point of view. By a contrivance 
now common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period 
of antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one 
entering the room, they bore the appearance of simple mon- 
strosities ; but upon a farther advance, this appearance gradu- 
ally departed ; and, step by step, as the visitor moved his sta- 
tion in the chamber, he saw himself surrounded by an endless 
succession of the ghastly forms which belong to the supersti- 
tion of the Norman, <?** arise in the guilty slumbers of the 


LIQEIA. 


91 


monk. The phantasmagoric eiBfect was vastly heightened by 
the artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind 
behind the draperies — giving a hideous and imeasy animation 
to the whole. 

lu halls such as these — in a bridal chamber such as this — I 
passed, with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of 
the first month of our marriage — passed them with but little 
disquietude. That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of 
my temper — that she shunned me, and loved me but little — I 
could not help perceiving ; but it gave me rather pleasure than 
otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to 
demon than to man. My memory flew back (oh, with what 
intensity of regret !) to Ligeia, the beloved, the august, the 
beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in recollections of her 
purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty, her ethereal nature, of her 
passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit fully 
and freely bum with more than all the fires of her own. In 
the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fet- 
tered in the shackles of the drug), I would call aloud upon 
her name, during the silence of the night, or among the shel- 
tered recesses of the glens by day, as if, through the wild 
eagerness, the solemn promise, the consuming ardor of my 
longing for the departed, I could restore her to the pathway 
she had abandoned — ah, could it be forever? — upon the earth. 

About the commencement of the second month of the mar- 
riage, the Lady Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, 
from which her recovery was slow. . The fever which con- 
sumed her, rendered her nights uneasy ; and in her perturbed 
state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of motions, in 
and about the chamber of the tuiTet, which I concluded had 
no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in 
the phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She 
became at length convalescent — finally, well. Yet but a brief 
period elapsed, ere a second more violent disorder again 
threw her upon a bed of suffering ; and from this attack her 
frame, at aU times feeble, never altogether recovered. Her ill- 
nesses were, after this epoch, of alarming character, and of more 
alarming recurrence, defying alike the knowledge and the 
great exertions of her physicians. With the increase of the 
chronic disease, which had thus, apparently, taken too sure 
hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by human means, 
I could not fail to observe a similar increase in the nervous 
irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by triv- 


92 


LIOEIA. 


ial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently 
and pertinaciously, of the sounds — of the slight sounds — and 
of the unusual motions among the tapestries, to which she 
had formerly alluded. 

One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this 
distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my 
attention. She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, 
and I had been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half 
of vague terror, the workings of her emaciated countenance. 
I sat by the side of her ebony bed, upon one of the ottomans 
of India. She partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low 
whisper, of sounds which she . then heard, but which I could 
not hear — of motions which she then saw, but which I could 
not perceive. The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the 
tapestries, and I wished to show her (what, let me confess it, 
I could not all beheve) that those almost inarticulate breath- 
ings, and those very gentle variations of the figures upon the 
wall, were but the natural effects of that customary rushing 
of the wind. But a deadly pallor, overspreading her face, 
had proved to me that my exertions to reassure her would be 
fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and no attendants 
were within call. I remembered where was deposited a de- 
canter of light wine which had been ordered by her physi- 
cians, and hastened across the chamber to procure it. But, 
as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two circumstances 
of a stM*tling nature attracted my attention. I had felt that 
some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by 
my person ; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, 
in the very middle of the rich lustre thrown from the censer, 
a shadow — a faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect— such 
as might be fancied for the shadow of a shade. But I was 
wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, 
and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them to Ro- 
wena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber, and 
poured out a gobletful, which I held to the lips of the faint- 
ing lady. She had now partially recovered, however, and 
took the vessel herself, while I sank upon an ottoman near 
me, with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was then 
that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the 
carpet, and near the couch ; and in a second thereafter, as 
Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, 
or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if 
from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room. 


LIOEIA. 


93 


three or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby-colored fluid. 
If this I saw — not so Kowena. She swallowed the wine un- 
hesitatingly, and I forebore to speak to her of a circumstance 
which must, after all, I considered, have been but the sug- 
gestion of a vivid imagination, rendered morbidly active by 
the terror of the lady, by the opium, and by the hour. 

Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, im- 
mediately subsequent to the fall of the ruby^rops, a rapid 
change for the woi-se took place in the disorder of my wife ; 
so, that, on the third subsequent night, the hands of her me- 
nials prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, 
with her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had 
received her as my bride. — Wild visions, opium-engendered, 
flitted, shadow-hke, before me. I gazed with unquiet eye 
upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon the vary- 
ing figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the parti- 
colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then feU, as I 
called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the 
spot beneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the 
faint traces of the shadow. It was there, however, no longer ; 
and breathing with greater freedom, I turned my glances to 
the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then rushed upon 
me a thousand memories of Ligeia — and then came back upon 
my heart, with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of 
that unutterable wo with which I had regarded her thus en- 
shrouded. The night waned ; and, still, with a bosom full of 
bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I re- 
mained gazing upon the body of Kowena. 

It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, 
for I had taken no note of time, when a sob, low gentle, but 
very distinct, startled me from my revery. I felt that it came 
from the bed of ebony — the bed of death. I hstened in an 
agony of superstitious terror — but there was no repetition of 
tlie sound. I strained my vision to detect any motion in the 
corpse — but there was not the slightest perceptible. Yet I 
could not have been deceived. I had heard the noise, how- 
ever faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely 
and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. 
Many minutes elapsed before any circumstances occurred tend- 
ing to throw light upon the mystery. At length it became 
evident that a slight, a very feeble, and barely noticeable tinge 
of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and along the 
sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of un- 


94 


LIOEIA. 


utterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortall jr 
has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cedse 
to beat, my hmbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of 
duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could 
no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our prepara- 
tions — that Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some 
immediate exertion be made ; yet the turret was altogether 
apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the servants 
— there were none within call — I had no means of summoning 
them to my aid mthout leaving the room for many minutes — 
and this I could not venture to do. I therefore struggled 
alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit still hovering. 
In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had 
taken place ; the color disappeai'ed from both eyelid and 
cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble ; the 
lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly 
expression of death ; a repulsive clamminess and coldness 
overspread rapidly the surface of the body ; and all the usual 
rigorous stiffness immediately supervened. I fell back -svith a 
shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly 
aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking vis- 
ions of Ligeia. 

An hour thus elapsed, when (could it be possible ?) I was a 
second time aware of some vague sound issuing from the re- 
gion of the bed. I listened — in extremity of horror. The 
soimd came again — it was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I 
saw — distinctly saw — a tremor upon the lips. In a minute 
afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the pearly 
teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the pro- 
found awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt 
that my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered ; and it 
was only by a violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerv- 
ing myseK to the task which duty thus once more had pointed 
out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and 
upon the cheek and throat ; a perceptible warmth pervaded 
the whole frame ; there was even a slight pulsation at the 
heart. The lady lived ; and with redoubled ardor I betook 
myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and bathed the 
temples and the hands, and used every exertion which expe- 
rience, and no little medical reading, could suggest. But in 
vain. Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the hps 
resumed the expression of the dead, and, in an instant after- 
ward, the whole body took upon itself the icy chilliness, the 


LIGEIA. 


95 


livid hue, the intense rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the 
loathsome peculiarities of that which has been, for many day^ 
a tenant of the tomb. 

And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia — and again (what 
marvel that I shudder while I write ?), again there reached my 
ears a low sob from the region of the ebony bed. But why 
shall I minutely detail the unspeakable horrors of that night ? 
Why shall I pause to relate how, time after time, until near 
the period of the gray dawn, this hideous drama of revivica- 
tion was repeated ; how each terrific relapse was only into a 
sterner and apparently more irredeemable death ; how each 
agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe ; 
and how each struggle was succeeded by I know not what of 
wild change in the personal appearance of the corpse ? Let 
me hurry to a conclusion. 

The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and 
she wh>) had been dead, once again stirred — and now more 
vigorously than hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution 
more appalling in its utter hopelessness than any. I had long 
ceased to struggle or to move, and remained sitting rigidly 
upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a w’'hirl of violent emo- 
tions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least terrible, the 
least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now more 
vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with un- 
wonted energy into the countenance — the limbs relaxed — and, 
save that the eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and 
that the bandages and draperies of the grave stiU imparted 
their charnel character to the figure, I might have dreamed 
that Kowena had indeed shaken off, utterly, the fetters of 
Death. But if this idea was not, even then, altogether adopted, 
I could at least doubt no longer, when, arising from the bed, 
tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the 
manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was en- 
shrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle of the 
apartment. 

I trembled not — I stirred not — for a crowd of unutterable 
fancies connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of 
the figure, rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed 
— had chilled me into stone. I stirred not — but gazed upon 
the apparition. There was a mad disorder in my thoughts — 
a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the living Row- 
ena who confronted me ? Could it indeed be Rowena at all 
—the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of 


90 


LIOEIA. 


Tremaine ? Why, why should I doubt it ? The bandage lay 
heavily about the mouth — but then might it not be the mouth 
of the breathing Lady of Tremaine ? And the cheeks — there 
were the roses as in her noon of life — yes, these might indeed 
be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the 
chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers ? — 
but had she then grown taller since her rnalady f What inex- 
pressible madness seized me with that thought ? One bound, 
and I had reached her feet ! Shrinking from my touch, she 
let fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements 
which had confined it, and there streamed forth, into the 
rushing atmosphere of the chamber, huge masses of long and 
dishevelled hair ; it was blacker than the raven wings of mid- 
night I And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure which 
stood before me. “Here then, at least,” I shrieked aloud, 
“ can I never — can I never be mistaken — these are the fuU, and 
the black, and the wild eyes — of my lost love— -of the Lady — 
of the Lady Ligeia.” 


ALWAYS ASK FOR THE DONOHUE 

Complete Editions and you will gret the best for the least money 


THRILLING, INTERESTING, INSTRUCTIVE 

BOOKS 

By HARRY 
CASTLEMON 

No boy’s library is complete unless it contains all of 
the books by that charming, delightful writer of boys’ 
■tories of adventure, Harry Castlemon. The follow- 
ing are the titles, uniform in size, style and binding: 

1 Boy Trapper, The 

2 Frank the Young Naturalist 

3 Frank in the Woods 

4 Frank on the Lower Mississippi 

5 Frank on a Gunboat 

6 Frank Before Vicksburg 

7 Frank on the Prairie 

8 Frank at Don Carlos Ranch 

9 The First Capture 

10 Struggle for a Fortune, A 

11 Winged Arrows Medicine 

All of the above books may be had at the store where 
this book was bought, or will be sent postage prepaid 
at 75c each, by the publishers. 

M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 

701-727 S. Dearborn Street, CHICAGO 


ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR 

THE DONOHUE COMPLETE EDITIONS 

and you will get the beat for the least money 



JAH 3 1913 


ALWAYS ASK FOR THE DONOHUE 

Complete Editions and you will get the best for the least money 


“Jack Harkaway” 

Series of Books 

For Boys 

By Brslcebridge Hemyng 

“For a regrular thriller corn- 
mend me to * Jack Harkaway.’" 

This edition of Jack Harkaway 
is printed from large clear type, 
new plates, on a very superior 
quality of book paper and the 
books are substantially bound in 
binders’ cloth. The covers are 
unique and attractive, each title 
having a separate cover in colors 
from new dies. Each book in 
printed wrapper, with cover 
design and title Cloth 12mo. 

1 Jack Harkaway’s School Days 

2 Jack Harkaway After School Days 

3 Jack Harkaway Afloat and Ashore 

4 Jack Harkaway at Oxford 

5 Jack Harkaway’s Adventures at Oxford 

6 Jack Harkaway Among the Brigands of Italy 

7 Jack Harkaway’s Escape From the Brigands 

of Italy 

8 Jack Harkaway’s Adventures Around the World 

9 Jack Harkaway in America and Cuba 

16 Jack Harkaway’s Adventures in China * 

11 Jack Harkaway’s Adventures in Greece 

12 Jack Harkaway’s Escape From the Brigands 

of Greece 

13 Jack Harkaways Adventures in Australia 

14 Jack Harkaway and His Boy Tinker 

15 Jack Harkaway’s Boy Tinker Among the Turks 

We will send any of the above titles postpaid to any address. Each 

75c 

M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 

701-727 DEARBORN STREET :: CHICAGO 




A 

1 




( 


* 




i 


* 


I 






« 



•• 





< 


t 

i 





r 






« 



\ • 


•> i 
^ 


1 


• • 


» 

r 


i'-' 


■•v 


♦ 

-M 


'T' 


^rc 





> 





\i 


t 



t 



i 





% 




I 








